Access to cash is becoming an ever-increasing problem for many people and small businesses as banks shut branches and remove free-to-use cash machines.
Yet the withdrawal of these services from high streets is having a horrible side effect – it is concentrating the minds of criminals on the major role that post offices still play in the provision of cash facilities.
As a result, thugs are targeting post offices, committing daring and violent robberies in the pursuit of hard cash.
On February 19, a post office in the tiny village of Monk Fryston in North Yorkshire was the victim of such a robbery. It’s an experience that owners Karen and Adrian Bullock never want to go through again.
Indeed, it was so traumatic they have decided to close the post office and concentrate on running the convenience store and their bed and breakfast business.
Tale of trauma: Jeff Prestridge with Karen and Adrian Bullock outside their store in North Yorkshire
Although the Post Office says otherwise, Karen is convinced that small post offices like hers are increasingly vulnerable to cash robberies, and that some of the measures recommended to thwart the criminals simply leave staff more exposed to violent attack.
‘There’s not a night I don’t wake up thinking someone is breaking into our house or shop, looking for the cash we take as a post office,’ says 57-year-old Karen. ‘For the first time since we moved here two years ago, I feel unsafe. It’s a horrible feeling.
‘We thought this would be our last job before we both retired, but now we are not so sure.’
We are sitting in Adrian and Karen’s home lounge at the back of their village store and post office.
Outside it’s grey and spitting with rain, yet it’s rather idyllic in so many other ways. The shop is a jack and jill of all trades, selling everything from delicious chocolate flapjacks (yes, I succumbed), everyday household goods, chicken curry pasties through to homemade pickles and jams.
The adjoining house is spacious, awash with ornaments giving away Karen’s love of horses.
The four-bedroom B&B sparkles from a recent refurbishment, with beds as wide as they are long and a breakfast room adorned with numerous Visit England certificates acknowledging the quality of Adrian’s breakfasts.
‘He cooks a mean full English,’ admits Karen. ‘He’s king of the kitchen.’ The 61-year-old is also a part-time agronomist – an expert in soil management who provides advice to farmers.
Apart from The Crown pub and a wedding venue currently closed, the village store is the heart of Monk Fryston – a name, originally Monk Free Stone, that it acquired because its quarry provided materials for the nearby Selby Abbey.
Karen loves the fact that the store is embedded in the community. She is a carer by profession and will go out of her way to help anyone in the village. Nearly a decade ago she set up Snydale Riding For The Disabled Association – close to where she previously lived – which last year earned her a British Empire Medal.
Weapon: One of the raiders was armed with a claw roofing hammer (file picture)
The robbery took place on a Monday afternoon. The exact time is for ever etched on Karen’s brain. ‘It was 4.50,’ she says.
‘I was sitting exactly where I am sitting now, on the settee. Susie and Joanne, two of our six part-time assistants, were in the shop – Susie in the tiny post office area, Joanne in the store. Our three-year-old Maltese Shih Tzu was dozing next to me while Adrian was in the kitchen.
‘Suddenly, Joanne ran into the house looking drip white. “We’re being robbed. They’ve got Susie,” she exclaimed. I followed Adrian into the shop to see a man holding a claw roofing hammer.
‘I screamed and dragged Adrian back before the robber could use it against him. The other man, who had confronted Susie, jumped over the counter and they ran out the door into a waiting van which was driven away at speed.’
What they didn’t realise is that Mel, the local postman, was in the shop at the time of the robbery and had been knocked out in the fracas, injuring his arm as he crashed into a cupboard.
Karen rang 999, and after a three-hour wait an ambulance took him to hospital. Although he was discharged the next day, he has yet to return to work. ‘He’s on the mend,’ says Karen reassuringly.
The robbers got away with £1,650 of cash – £650 from the shop till and £1,000 from the post office’s mini-safe.
Karen and Adrian’s intervention probably stopped the criminals from targeting the main safe located elsewhere. Although Susie pressed the post office panic button linked to a security company, it wasn’t responded to.
While Karen has nothing but praise for the police – and was pleased with the prompt response from the Post Office – she says the thought of another robbery is too much to bear.
‘The Post Office told us that we should have a longer four-minute delay on the safe, and also recommended a button that would billow out smoke as soon as it was pressed by a member of staff,’ says Karen.
‘Our view is that these measures would simply increase the risks faced by our staff if we were robbed again. They might agitate the criminals, and we’re not prepared to agree to that.’
So, with sadness, the post office will be shut in early June. A message on the shop’s window spells out the news – and Karen, the author, doesn’t hold back in attributing blame.
‘Societal changes such as the closure of banks and removal of ATMs have resulted in increasing large sums of cash being handled at post offices. The result of this is that local post offices have become easy targets for criminal gangs.’
Locals are sympathetic to Karen’s decision, deploring the violence committed by the criminals, but to use a post office they will now have to travel to the nearby villages of Brayton, Brotherton and Sherburn.
Vanishing: The withdrawal of banks and cash machines from high streets is concentrating the minds of criminals on the role that post offices still play in the provision of cash facilities
Karen says Keir Mather, the Labour MP for Selby and Ainsty, has been supportive and came to visit them in the aftermath of the robbery.
He has since called for rural post offices to be given extra security measures in the wake of a rising crime threat.
The Post Office told Money Mail: ‘This was a truly horrific incident and we have offered our support to the postmistress, her husband, and their staff.
‘We welcome the seriousness with which the police are treating this crime, and we hope the criminals are brought to justice.’
Yet it was also keen to downplay the crime threat. It said that when robberies took place, it was usually the retail side of the business that was targeted – most of the country’s 11,500 post offices are located within a convenience store or village shop.
It added that the number of robberies that took place at post offices in February was broadly in line with February 2023, but that the amount lost in those robberies was down 57 per cent.
It also said there was no evidence of a trend of postmasters handing back the keys because of either attempted or actual robberies.
The statement added: ‘While criminal incidents do occur they are thankfully rare, and incidents have reduced over the years, in part thanks to better security equipment and improved security procedures in branches. Whenever there is an incident of crime, we take the lessons from that to help improve the security for all postmasters across our network.’
Nationwide Building Society, like the Post Office a big provider of high street banking, told Money Mail that criminal attacks had ‘been slightly higher recently’. It added: ‘We’re proactively working with the police and other financial institutions to support efforts to arrest and prosecute those behind criminal activity.
‘As a sector we are also working with Crimestoppers and Neighbourhood Watch charities to raise awareness of organised criminal activity targeting ATMs and would encourage anyone who sees anything unusual to report it to the local police.’
As for the criminals who robbed Karen and Adrian’s post office six weeks ago, one individual was arrested and then released on bail. An arrest warrant has been issued for another person – both live outside the area.
Karen won’t be at peace until they are behind bars.
‘The sleepless nights will continue, for sure,’ she says. ‘These people have smashed a wrecking ball through our business. Such criminals need to be stopped in their tracks.
‘They are destroying small communities like ours that make up the fabric of this country. And, I’m sorry to say, the banks are partly to blame.’
jeff.prestridge@dailymail.co.uk
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