Postal worker ordered to pay back £3,193 stolen from parcels

[TrueBlueTerrier]

http://www.westsussextoday.co.uk/news/c ... -1-5613719" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

A former postal worker at Gatwick Mail Centre has been ordered to pay back the £3,193 she admitted stealing from parcels.

Royal Mail brought the prosecution against Jane Davies, of Falcon Close, Langley Green. She was sentenced at Horsham Magistrates’ Court last week.

At an earlier hearing in Crawley, the 55-year-old pleaded guilty to five charges of theft of vouchers totalling £3,193 including gift cards for high street shops and book tokens. There was a sixth charge of stealing a parcel and its contents of £1,000 in cash, but Davies maintained there was nothing in the parcel when she dealt with it.

Davies, who worked for Royal Mail for 12 years before committing the offences between February and May this year, was found out after 12 customers said they had not received their vouchers. She was then spotted on CCTV in shops spending vouchers.

Ten had been reported undelivered and five had been spent in the Crawley area. Investigators found three bundles of parcels at Davies’ home and she had made cash deposits from them totalling £688.

At the September hearing in Crawley her solicitor Geoff White said Davies had ‘temporarily gone off the rails’ during a period of ill mental health and had made a ‘full and frank admission’ of the charges against her apart from taking the £1,000.

Taking into account her guilty plea, magistrates sentenced her to 12 weeks in prison suspended for 12 months, 250 hours of unpaid work and was ordered to pay £3,193 compensation to Royal Mail, a victim surcharge of £80 and £85 costs.

A spokesman from Royal Mail said: “Royal Mail has a zero tolerance approach to any dishonesty and that stance is shared by the overwhelming majority of postmen and women, who are honest and hardworking and who do all they can to protect the mail and deliver it safely.

“It is a criminal offence to tamper with or delay the delivery of mail and anyone caught doing so will face serious disciplinary measures and Royal Mail will always seek to prosecute the tiny minority of people who abuse their position of trust.

“The safety and security of mail is of the utmost importance to this business and Royal Mail will not allow the actions of any individual to damage the good reputation of our thousands of hard-working postmen and women.”

[stokes11eg]

Strange isn't it. R/M seem to be the only company who will wait to search workers coming in to work, in case they have one undelivered letter on them, yet allow everyone to walk out stuffed up with stolen goods. !

[UnhappyGremlin]

“It is a criminal offence to tamper with or delay the delivery of mail and anyone caught doing so will face serious disciplinary measures and Royal Mail will always seek to prosecute the tiny minority of people who abuse their position of trust."

Unless you're a manager, and can claim 'operational necessity'.