Stephen Bradshaw, former Post Office investigator, tells Horizon IT inquiry this was ‘probably not’ appropriate

Back at the Post Office inquiry Julian Blake says Stephen Bradshaw, the Post Office investigator, seems to show a “lack of reflection” on his role in miscarriage of justice events in a witness statement he supplied.

Bradshaw says he has reflected on what he said in his statement, because some of what he said was “completely wrong”. But he says he was told what he should say by lawyers.

Stephen Bradshaw, who was an investigation manager for the Post Office, said a statement signed by him declaring the Post Office’s “absolute confidence” in the Horizon IT system was written by lawyers.

A statement signed by Bradshaw in November 2012 said: “The Post Office continues to have absolute confidence in the robustness and integrity of its Horizon system.”

The average response time in December for ambulances in England dealing with the most urgent incidents, defined as calls from people with life-threatening illnesses or injuries, was 8min 44sec, PA says. This is up from 8min 32sec in November and is above the target standard response time of seven minutes.

Ambulances took an average of 45min 57sec last month to respond to emergency calls such as heart attacks, strokes and sepsis, PA says. This is up from 38min 30sec in November, while the target is 18min.

Response times for urgent calls, such as late stages of labour, non-severe burns and diabetes, averaged 2hr 37min 5sec in December, up from 2hr 16min 47secin November, PA says.

Some 13% of ambulance handovers in England last week, or 12,225 patients, were delayed by more than an hour, PA says. This was up from 12% a week earlier, but is below this winter’s current peak of 15%, recorded in the week to 10 December.

Nearly one in three patients arriving by ambulance at hospitals in England last week waited more than 30 minutes to be handed over to A&E teams, PA says. Some 28,189 delays of half an hour or longer were recorded across all hospital trusts in the week to 7 January. This was 31% of the 91,234 arrivals by ambulance, where the handover time was known. The figure is up from 29% in the previous week, but is not the highest so far this winter, which was 34% in the week ending 10 December, PA says.