POSTAL WORKER SOLD PARCELS TO PAY MORTGAGE

[TrueBlueTerrier]

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11:40 - 15 January 2008

A postman stole hundreds of pounds of electrical equipment intended to be delivered to customers to help pay his rising mortgage costs.

Bradley Hughes, 29, sold on the items while he worked as a collection delivery driver for Parcelforce, in Trusham Road, Marsh Barton.

Royal Mail investigators finally caught Hughes after setting up a sting operation.

A PlayStation 3 console and controller and 14 other parcels were among the items he admitted stealing over a six-month period starting in December, 2006.

Hughes, of Heraldry Walk, Kings Heath, Exeter, was sentenced at Exeter Magistrates Court to two months' imprisonment, suspended for 12 months, and 120 hours of unpaid work.

District Judge Paul Farmer told Hughes that the seriousness of his actions meant he would have been jailed if he had had a past history of dishonesty.

Solicitor Niall Brooks, representing Royal Mail in the private prosecution, said the firm had become suspicious after parcels went missing from several delivery routes.

They used CCTV surveillance and, on May 19, last year, discovered Hughes removing parcels from two vehicles, the drivers of which had subsequently reported the parcels as missing.

Investigators then set a trap to prove what Hughes was up to involving the delivery of a test parcel to an address in Torquay but with an incorrect postcode. When Hughes was asked to return the parcel to the depot, it was found to have been tampered with.

When interviewed by the investigating officers, Hughes initially denied any wrongdoing, but when CCTV footage was produced, he admitted stealing the PlayStation 3 console and controller and 14 other parcels and deleting them from delivery records.

Mr Brooks said the value of the stolen goods was unknown, but the cost of the private prosecution to Royal Mail was £1,400.

Senior probation officer Keith Annison said the offences had begun soon after Hughes started work with Parcelforce in August, 2006.

He said Hughes had stolen to meet monthly mortgage payments, which rose to £500 on a shared-ownership home he had bought with his partner.

Mr Annison said: "They made separate payments and he felt uncomfortable at being unable to do his part and felt unable to disclose this, and the difficulties mounted to reach a point where he was tempted to steal to contribute to the payments."

Hughes has since had a baby with his partner and they are still together.

Judge Farmer also ordered Hughes to pay £250 towards prosecution costs.

[DGP1]

What was really disturbing about this is he took for other vans not only his own so he brought other drivers under suspicion and he only started in August 06 and started stealing straight away (so much for RM super security) so he only started to steal