THE BOX, THE BANK AND THE CANDIDATE

Firstly lets set the record straight for our readers, we are doing nothing illegal in reporting this tale to you. We have not breached the Data Protection Act at all.

All we are doing is re-telling a tale that has been passed on to us, we have also been told that the Candidate was very free with this information themselves within Barking CLP while lobbying certain senior members to write glowing references on them and in the same letter stating that the bank was awful.

Luckily we are told the majority of those approached refused to write such a letter, but the odd one or two may have got through.

Lets start this by asking our readers, Why would you want to deposit a reasonably large amount of cash in a Safe Deposit Box? We can understand why the alleged jewellery was put in, but not the money, unless of course it was thought to be a way of hiding money.

Anyway we digress, we are told that the candidate went into their bank and stated that they wanted to open a safety deposit box, they were told that they would have to purchase their own box which they did. They returned to the bank with the box and deposited we are told somewhere between £19,000 and £30,000 and some jewellery. Although we would point out that the bank has no way of confirming that this happened.

The story then continues that within a very short space of time the candidate returns to the bank stating that they wish to remove or check something in their Deposit Box, of course being taken by 2 bank operatives to a separate room and then left alone with the box.

It then transpires that the candidate comes out and states that the money that they put in the box is no longer there, and that members of staff at the bank must have stolen it.

The candidate we are told kicked up such a fuss that the bank called the police.

We were also told that the Police did do an investigation into the theft, but, the result of their investigation did not please the candidate one little bit.

We have been told by a number of sources that the Candidate tried to pursue this through the courts and the ombudsman that is why the candidate needed the glowing references.

What we have done on hearing of this very sad tale is to check out with a number of the High Street banks just what were their policies on the opening and keeping safe of Safety Deposit Boxes.

Firstly anyone who actually told the bank that they wished to keep cash in there would be informed that it was not a good way to keep money and that there was easy access to their cash by putting it into an account which would earn interest for them.

Secondly all Banks have a dual control system in dealing with access to Safety Deposit Boxes, at all times when a client wishes to access their box 2 members of the Banks staff would have to be in attendance to bring the box out of a locked room and place it in front of the customer before leaving the room. And the same in returning the box to a locked room.

Now we are not saying that the candidate lied, we are not even suggesting that there was no money put into the box in the first place, what we are saying is that it appears that the Police investigation did not uphold the claim of the candidate.

Readers of course are invited to make up their own minds.