POST OFFICE SCANDAL – Investigator denies claims of ‘mafia’ behaviour as he gives evidence to Horizon inquiry

Ex-Post Office investigator Stephen Bradshaw has denied he and colleagues behaved like “mafia gangsters” towards wrongly accused sub-postmasters.

Mr Bradshaw was involved in the criminal investigation of nine sub-postmasters and was giving evidence to the Post Office inquiry.

He denied intimidating or misleading the sub-postmasters he investigated.

Hundreds were wrongly prosecuted between 1999 and 2015 after being falsely accused of stealing money.

Mr Bradshaw – who joined the unit tasked with investigating sub-postmasters in 2000 – was questioned for several hours on Thursday.

Extracts were read out from a statement by Shazia Saddiq, a former sub-postmistress originally from Newcastle, who used to run three Post Offices in the city.

Jacqueline McDonald was wrongly jailed over a supposed theft in 2011.

In a statement, she accused Mr Bradshaw of bullying, saying he accused her of lying while she was under investigation.

She was sentenced to 18 months in prison after pleading guilty to theft and false accounting over losses recorded by Horizon at the Post Office branch she ran in Broughton. Her conviction was later overturned and described as an “affront to justice” by a senior Court of Appeal judge.