Bury postman Simon Hargreaves jailed for stealing gift vouchers from letters - and burning packages

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A POSTMAN who rifled through birthday cards to steal gift vouchers has been jailed for five months.

Simon Hargreaves worked for Royal Mail based in Bury and was entrusted to deal with thousands of letters a day — but instead rifled through packages to search for valuables.


And when he could not find items that were useful to him, he set fire to the leftover packages.


The 35-year-old, of Percy Street, Freetown, Bury, appeared before Bury magistrates on January 5 and admitted five offences — four of theft and one of arson and was sentenced a further hearing on January 12.

He must also pay Royal Mail £507 compensation.

According to court documents, magistrates said the offences were so serious because "there had been a breach of trust towards Royal Mail" and because there had been "a large number of victims".

Royal Mail, which brought the prosecution, has not said how many packages Hargreaves stole or destroyed, but court records show there were at least 64.


The former Broad Oak High School student committed the offences between July 1, 2014 and September 16, 2015 — some of them in Radcliffe.

On July 14, 2014, Hargreaves stole a postal packet containing a greeting card and a £30 Next gift card and on September 9, 2015, he stole seven postal packets worth a total of £76 and a £10 Love2Shop voucher.

After the court case, a Royal Mail spokesman said: "Royal Mail has a zero-tolerance approach to any dishonesty and that stance is shared by the overwhelming majority of postmen and women.

"We will not allow the actions of any individual to damage the good reputation of our thousands of hard-working postmen and women.


"It is a criminal offence to tamper with or delay the delivery of mail and anyone caught doing so will face serious disciplinary measures.

"Royal Mail will always seek to prosecute the tiny minority of people who abuse their position of trust."