Mostyn sub postmaster took money from Post Office accounts

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A SUB postmaster who propped up his own general store business by taking money from the Post Office accounts has been sent to the crown court for sentence.

Richard Wheatley, 63, covered his tracks by changing the daily and weekly accounts for the Post Office.

But when auditors turned up at Glan y Don sub Post Office in Mostyn, he told them that they would find a shortfall.

At Flintshire magistrates’ court at Mold, Wheatley, who lives above the premises at Coast Road, Mostyn, was due to be sentenced after he admitted a £10,185 fraud against Post Office Ltd between November last year and April this year.

Magistrates, who described it as planned and sophisticated, said it was so serious that it should be dealt with in the crown court and they bailed him in the meantime.

Wheatley, said to be £100,000 in debt, had been trying to sell the business for four years, had reduced the price of the property by £65,000, and had suggested that the Post Office could secure a charge on his home so that they could be guaranteed repayment.

Phillip Marshall-Thomas, defending, said that it was a sad case of a hard-working man who found himself between a rock and a hard place.

Wheatley accepted his responsibility and was deeply ashamed by what he had done.