The Post Office received a draft report by the consultants Deloitte in 2017 that showed the company knew that losses in branch accounts could be caused by the IT system and Fujitsu staff could remotely alter accounts without a post office operator's knowledge. The existence of the report was first reported by the BBC. The draft Deloitte report, entitled Bramble, had questioned whether Fujitsu could "edit or delete transactions recorded by branches in a way that could impact on the branch's overall accounting position"? It concluded: "Yes – transactions can be deleted at database layer." The document, which has been published on the Post Office inquiry website, also asked how "difficult it would be to do" and concluded that for certain users "this could be done". However, despite the 2017 draft report, the Post Office continued to defend the civil lawsuit that started in 2018, arguing the branch operators were at fault.