Postmistress denies stealing £70,000

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http://www.thisiswesternmorningnews.co. ... ticle.html

FORMER postmistress Janine Powell has denied stealing more than £70,000 from the post office where she worked.

The 37-year-old pleaded not guilty at Exeter Crown Court yesterday to theft from Cowleymoor post office near her home in Beech Road, Tiverton, Devon.

It is alleged that she stole the cash between March 30, 2006 and February 15 last year when she was working as postmistress at the branch, and covered her tracks by changing the accounts.

Prosecutor Andrew Oldland, opening the trial, said that Powell was employed by the One Stop company, which had a post office franchise inside its Beech Road store.

The money and assets she handled belonged to the Post Office and the prosecution was brought by Royal Mail Legal Services.

"This is not a case in which the defendant helped herself to over £70,000 in one go," said Mr Oldland. "It's a case of fraud against her employer and the Post Office over at least an 18-month period.

"The fraud consisted of stealing. She literally put her hand into the till and then covered up those acts of theft by false accounting."

Mr Oldland said that Powell was in a position of "considerable trust" as the manageress and she was responsible for keeping accounts.

He said one of Powell's alleged tactics was to pretend the amount of cash in the post office was much higher than it actually was, by shifting the figures around electronically. This enabled her to hide what she was doing from her colleagues, while the money disappeared.

The jury was told that Powell had worked as manageress of the post office branch since September 2004.

The policy was that bosses of post office franchises were given a great deal of freedom from inspection but a computer system kept watch on their stock.

If there was a surplus of spare cash in a post office, it was likely to be reinvested to make sure it was working for the benefit of the company's profits instead of remaining idle.

In February last year, it was noticed the cash held at Cowleymoor was unusually high, so an auditing team was drafted in, the court heard. "These auditors discovered cash actually held in the tills and safe was nowhere near that shown on the accounting information supplied," said the prosecutor. The team discovered a shortfall of at least £70,000.

Kim Stanford, area manager for One Stop stores, had also carried out an unannounced visit earlier that month, when Powell was on duty, said Mr Oldland. Miss Stanford saw the post office's cash being counted and it matched the accounts.

"But what Miss Stanford did not know, and her checks did not pick up, is that a quarter of an hour after she started, £70,000 in cash was transferred out within the accounting system from the main stock but nothing was physically moved. The Crown says the cash had long gone by then."

The trial continues.