Counsel Julian Blake now turns to the case of former sub-postmaster Grant Allen, in which Bradshaw was lead investigator.

Allen relocated his branch in 2010. The cost of refurbishment was about £100,000 and there was a discrepancy of £3,000. He could not find any explanation for it and he found out that Horizon was not working properly after relocating the branch.

A report was written by Bradshaw in 2012 showıng that there were communication issues with Horizon at the time.

When asked if he requested call logs, Bradshaw answers that there were no calls by Allen. He also admits that he did not know the correct helpline to call at the time.

Allen was sentenced to a 12-month community order and 200 hours unpaid work in January 2013 over a shortfall of around £11,000 in the accounts at the Post Office he ran in Winsford, Cheshire.

In 2022, his conviction was overturned.

A letter from Cartwright King, the solicitors for the Post Office, to Anne Nield's solicitors is being shown to Bradshaw on a screen.

The letter shows that Nield had been refused access to details of complaints and investigations into the Horizon system, and that she was requesting this access again.

The letter claims that a forensic accountant needed to examine the Horizon system and that, if computing errors were found, that the decision of whether prosecuting Nield was in the public interest should be revisited.

Bradshaw makes his point again that the public interest was rather in a charity not being credited with donations that it should have received.

Blake asks: "Might there not be another public interest?"

Bradshaw says he is not the prosecution authority, but that he gathered the information and passed it to the Post Office's lawyers.

Image source, Post Office inquiry

Bradshaw is now being asked questions based on Angela Sefton's and Anne Nield's defence statements - we heard earlier they were jointly charged with false accounting.

Blake, the inquiry's counsel, asks whether Bradshaw thought it was necessary to look further into allegations made against the Horizon system.

In response, Bradshaw repeats that he was tasked with gathering evidence and passing it on to solicitors, and he adds, the investigation he was carrying out focused on people not being credited with cash deposited some weeks or months earlier.

Pressed further, Bradshaw remains adamant the Horizon IT system is a separate issue.

Inquiry counsel Julian Blake points to an audit report that says the Fazakerley branch (where Angela Sefton and Anne Nield worked) was always "well-run and welcoming". However, the sub-postmasters and postmistresses said they were very concerned about a discrepancy.

Did you think there might have been wider problems with the Horizon system based on those concerns? he asks Bradshaw.

Bradshaw says it was not reported, adding that it is "very difficult to find something that isn't there".

Blake presses him on the discrepancies, asking Bradshaw why he didn't look further into them - and consider a software bug.

Not in this particular inquiry, says Bradshaw. This was solely about the "non credit" - people not being credited with the cash deposited some weeks or months earlier.

Blake is now showing an email from Andrew Bolc, lawyer at Cartwright King, to Stephen Bradshaw.

In the email Bolc said that at that moment the Post Office line remained that the system was a robust one. He was also asking when the review was going to be concluded since it could change the judge's decision.

Blake asks if these lines were reassuring.

Bradshaw says that he'd be more likely to know when the review is concluded.

When asked if that caused him any concerns, Bradshaw answers: "Yes."

"As I say that has come from them. I was sort of like a liaison for these."

Blake insists that the email shows that Bradshaw was aware of the corporate position, Bradshaw once again said that he was only a liaison.

Sam Hancock
Live reporter at the Post Office inquiry

As the second part of today's hearing gets going, here's a bit more from my conversation with Shazia Saddiq, a former sub-postmistress from Newcastle.

Stephen Bradshaw, the ex-Post Office fraud investigator giving evidence today, is the man who investigated Saddiq.

As soon as the shortfall was raised at her Westgate Hill branch (see my last post), Bradshaw began "harassing me with phone calls", Saddiq, now 40, tells me.

"Where's the money Shazia?" is something he would continually ask her, she says, explaining how he grew irritated as time went on because she refused to meet him or sign accounts that she believed to be wrong.

"He called me a [expletive] - he got that frustrated as time went on, because he was being so mean," she recalls.

I ask her how it feels seeing him here today. She says it's different to how she expected. "I'm trying to make eye contact, to say 'look I'm here, I'm one of the people you bullied' and he won't look at me."

On the renewed interest in the scandal, she calls the British public "awesome" and says her taxi driver today told her to come here "and go and get them - we're right here behind you".

As a reminder, Bradshaw earlier denied being a bully and a liar, and insisted he was a "small cog".

Bradshaw is then shown an audit report for the branch where Sefton and Nield worked: Fazakerley, which is in the suburbs of Liverpool.

Inquiry counsel Julian Blake asks Bradshaw if it was normal for four people to attend an audit visit, as the report highlights.

Bradshaw says two people were there to produce the audit, and the other two (including himself) were there for the inquiry into cash deposit slips not being credited.

Blake points out that the report says "there were tears", and asks Bradshaw if he remembers some Post Office staff being upset.

He says: "No, I don't recall them being in tears at all, I don't remember them being particularly upset."

The hearing continues and counsel Julian Blake is now referring to the case of Angela Sefton and Anne Nield, who each pleaded guilty to one count of false accounting on 11 April 2013.

They were jointly charged with Sefton receiving a six-month suspended sentence, and Nield getting a five-month suspended sentence.

Blake tells the inquiry that they had said they didn't report losses because they were "too terrified" and couldn't understand where shortages were coming from.

Using holiday money and credit cards, they both tried to repay shortages but "eventually ran out of funds".

Blake tells the hearing that call logs showed that issues with the Horizon IT system were "sporadically reported" by the two branch managers, Sefton and Nield.

A little earlier before the lunch break, Bradshaw told the inquiry there were different help desk systems in place and the Post Office had limited access to the Horizon call logs.

The inquiry is now back from the lunch break and Stephen Bradshaw is set to continue answering questions from the counsel.

You can watch the inquiry live by pressing Play at the top of the page, and we'll continue to bring you the latest.

They're a couple of minutes behind in getting up and running due to a problem with the transcript, chairman Sir Wyn Williams says.

Sam Hancock
Live reporter at the Post Office inquiry

While everyone's taking a breather here at the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry, Shazia Saddiq, a former sub-postmistress, has agreed to sit down with me for a few minutes.

Saddiq, originally from Newcastle, used to run three Post Offices in the city, alongside being a single mother.

In October 2016, she was told that around £40,000 was missing from her Westgate Hill site. She tells me there had long been issues with the ATM at her branch "speaking to" the Horizon computer software at the heart of this scandal.

She says "so-called auditors" then came in, but they failed to perform simple checks such as going over her receipts.

Saddiq wasn't convicted, which she says is only down to the fact she wasn't physically present to sign off the accounts to say they were true, but her branches were closed.

As a result, she and her children - who lived above one of their Post Offices - were physically assaulted. People "thought I was a thief," she tells me, adding:

The family now live in Banbury, Oxfordshire, and to this day when Saddiq sees family and friends still living in Newcastle, she says she stays around the outskirts or meets people "somewhere in the middle".

Meanwhile, while the inquiry’s been ongoing, the Prime Minister’s official spokesman has suggested that a “significant number” of sub-postmasters involved in legal action against Post Office will not accept the government's offer of £75,000 compensation.

The spokesman emphasised that this figure was “an upfront offer” and that those “more significantly impacted” were able to “seek a higher offer”. He said the government aimed to resolve claims by summer.

The spokesman estimated that around a third of individuals would take the offer.

A one-off payment of £75,000 has been offered by the government to the 555 ex-postmasters whose group court case, led by Alan Bates, helped to expose the injustice. Most of the 555 were not criminally convicted.

The Post Office investigator, Stephen Bradshaw, is "one of the worst investigators in history" according to Nick Wallis, who has led the journalistic charge on the Post Office scandal.

Speaking on BBC Radio 5 Live, Wallis says Bradshaw was also "working for one of the worst investigation outfits in history".

"He comes across as a bully in the transcripts in the interviews we've been listening to.

"The way he comes across in these transcripts and the quality of his investigations is why we are dealing with this scandal."

Between 1999 and 2015, the Post Office prosecuted 700 sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses based on the faulty Horizon IT system.

As a reminder, in his testimony today Bradshaw said he was not "technically minded" and insisted he was a "small cog". He also denied being a bully and a liar.

CPS prosecuted three Horizon cases when it was run by Keir Starmerpublished at 13:39 Greenwich Mean Time 11 January

13:39 GMT 11 January

Image source, PA

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) brought three cases against postmasters while the Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer was running the CPS.

Starmer served as Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) – in charge of the CPS - from 2008 to 2013.

During this period, the CPS says it prosecuted three cases. They resulted in sentences for theft and theft and fraud.

In one of these, a person was sentenced to 21 months in jail in 2009.

We asked whether Starmer would have been aware of these cases at the time, but the CPS would not say and Labour referred us back to the CPS when we asked the same question.

So far, the CPS says it has identified 11 cases it prosecuted – in connection with the Horizon IT scandal - between 2001 and 2020.

Last year, the CPS says it prosecuted 400,000 criminal cases. Not all of these cases would have needed DPP approval to prosecute.

CPS rules, external provide examples of cases which need a higher level of authorisation, such as offences related to foreign tax evasion.

James Cook
Scotland Editor

Image source, PA Media

While the inquiry in London takes a break, let's take a look at what's happening in Scotland - where Post Office workers were also affected by the faulty Horizon software.

Pressure is growing on Scotland's senior prosecutor, the Lord Advocate Dorothy Bain KC, to explain why the Crown Office prosecuted innocent sub-postmasters.

Unlike in England and Wales, where most prosecutions were carried out by the Post Office itself, in Scotland cases were brought by the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service.

At First Minister's Question Time in Edinburgh, Humza Yousaf said the Crown Office was told in 2013 about possible problems with evidence being provided by the Post Office. But it was not until 2015 that it stopped prosecuting cases where evidence was dependent on the faulty Horizon software.

The Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross pointed out that one procurator fiscal in Glasgow had expressed concerns about Horizon as early as January 2013 when a case was dropped.

In a previous response to a Freedom of Information request from the BBC, the Crown Office had said it was informed of possible issues in May 2013.

Responding to calls from Ross and the Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar, Yousaf suggested that the Lord Advocate might be prepared to come to the Scottish Parliament to answer questions about the affair.

Up to 100 sub-postmasters were prosecuted in Scotland, but only two Scottish convictions have been overturned so far.

The first minister said yesterday that everyone convicted in Scotland as part of the scandal would be cleared by enabling the law being enacted at Westminster in England and Wales to apply in Scotland too.

Stephen Bradshaw began working for the Post Office in 1978, became part of the investigations team in 2000, and is now security manager. In his evidence so far, he said:

• By 2010, he was aware of media reports about problems with the Horizon IT system, but said he was "not technically minded... I would expect that to come from the people above"
• "If there was an issue, I would expect Fujitsu to inform the Post Office, and the Post Office to let us know what the issues are"
• A statement he signed in 2012 - declaring the Post Office's "absolute confidence" in the software - was written by lawyers, not him
• "In hindsight... there probably should have been another line, stating these are not my words"

• With investigators accused of behaving like "mafia gangsters", Bradshaw denied being a bully, and denied being a liar
• At one point, he called himself a "small cog", and - at the end of the session - repeated his lack of techincal expertise

Sam Hancock
Live reporter at the Post Office inquiry

In the last while we've been deep into some of the legal correspondence in former sub-postmaster Khayyam Ishaq's case here at the inquiry.

As we've been reporting, Ishaq was convicted of theft, false accounting and fraud in 2013. He pleaded guilty to the theft of £17,863 and was sentenced to 54 weeks' imprisonment initially, but his conviction was quashed by the Court of Appeal in 2021.

Inquiry lawyer Julian Blake has been going through a flurry of letters and emails between Ishaq's lawyers and those representing the Post Office, sent in the lead-up to Ishaq's trial. He's grilled Stephen Bradshaw, Ishaq's Post Office investigator, about some of their detail.

At one point, Bradshaw, with some exasperation, said he's "a small cog in this". It followed a line of questioning about a particular letter sent by the Post Office's legal team to Ishaq's, which he said would've been written and sent by the lawyers - even if he's mentioned in it.

I noticed a few of the former sub-postmasters and postmistresses watching on react to Bradshaw branding himself a "small cog".

The inquiry takes a break for lunch now and will return in an hour.

Stay with us as we catch you up on a few more lines and analysis.

Bradshaw has confirmed that no audit was taken of the Horizon system after former sub-postmaster Khayyam Ishaq was suspended in February 2011.

Inquiry counsel Julian Blake shows Bradshaw a letter stating defence solicitors were instructed that sub-postmasters who came after Ishaq did have problems with the Horizon system.

But Bradshaw says no issues were reported: “If they’re not reported, to me, there’s no issue.”

Showing Bradshaw a witness statement he took from the interim postmaster who took over in February 2011, which says there were “no significant shortages”, Blake asks if Bradshaw can see any issue with relying on what the sub-postmaster was telling him without checking it.

Bradshaw says no, as this was “an experienced postmaster”.

The postmaster's statement says there were no shortfalls over £20, and that he didn’t have to request any replacement kit. The statement also says that most of the work on book-balancing was done by the sub-postmaster’s son in law.

Bradshaw is now being asked about call log information pertaining to cases of those accused of theft during the height of the Post Office IT scandal.

He says he had call logs from the National Business Support Centre, and there had been no call logs made by Khayyam Ishaq - the former sub-postmaster convicted of offences including theft, false accounting, and fraud in 2013 which were later overturned.

Bradshaw explains, when pressed, that he initially thought there was only one call centre but there was also a Horizon help desk managed by the software developers, Fujitsu.

Bradshaw says it could have been as late as 2013 when he received the Horizon call logs, but Ishaq experienced problems prior to this and was suspended as a sub-postmaster in February 2011.

Image source, Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry

Counsel Julian Blake highlights a letter from Cartwright King, the law firm representing the Post Office.

In the letter the firm described the investigation by Khayyam Ishaq's lawyers, whose case we mentioned in our previous post, into Horizon's issues as a "fishing expedition".

Bradshaw says he would have provided any information that Cartwright King asked him for.

Blake then points out other complaints from the time and asks if they formed Bradshaw's disclosure in Ishaq's case.

Bradshaw says he expected the lawyers to do the final disclosure.

He adds that his duty was to provide them all the information he had about a specific case, but not necessarily any broader knowledge. That, Bradshaw says, was the responsibility of the lawyers.