Brush with the law for postie/decorator who dumped mail

[TrueBlueTerrier]

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Brush with the law for postie who dumped mail to work as decorator

A postman dumped mail in his back garden so he could finish early – to work as a decorator.

Andrew Cheetham, 26, failed to deliver nearly 1,000 postal packets over a three-week period. But a member of the public found two bin bags containing 609 letters on a road in Cheadle, Stockport.

And, Royal Mail prosecutor Joanne Stephen told Manchester magistrates court, more than 50 of them had been opened and some were fire-damaged.

Cheetham was trapped when he failed to deliver one of several packets sent by investigators in a sting.

At his home on Burnage Lane, Burnage, another 22 packets, some of them open, were recovered. Another open packet was found in his car.

A search of a second house in Cheadle unearthed a postal sack containing 316 letters in an outhouse, along with a single letter in a dustbin. Miss Stephens said Cheetham confessed to taking mail home, claiming he had been given too much to deliver.

He told investigators he had dumped it so he could finish early and work as a decorator in the afternoons to make more money.

Cheetham, who had been a postman for 18 months, admitted charges of attempting to destroy packages and intentionally delaying mail.

He was given a 12 month community order to attend a new direction activity programme, 100 hours of unpaid work and ordered to pay costs and compensation of £250. Court chairman Gerry Newman told him: "These offences are so serious we could have sent you straight to prison.

"This was a huge breach of trust to the Royal Mail and the public – you should be ashamed of yourself."

Piers Desser, defending, said the offences happened after Cheetham split up with his partner and was being denied access to his son.

He said: "This had a severe effect on him which he didn’t really appreciate and caused a drop in his work standards.

"There was no suggestion of dishonesty. The break-up got the better of him and he is full of remorse."

[andy2007]

If there was no dishonesty, then why were some of the packets open?