York postman caught red-handed

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Thieving Morrisons car park attendant caught with more than 80 £1 coins stashed in his shoes is jailed for six months

A THIEVING Morrisons car park attendant caught with more than 80 £1 coins stashed in his shoes has been jailed for six months.

Peter Hurson emptied the parking machines at the supermarket in Keighley into his own pocket, changing the coins into vouchers at nearby Asda, Bradford Crown Court heard.

Hurson, 48, of North Street in Keighley, was charged with stealing £6,194 from Morrisons, between January 30 and May 27 last year, and laundering more than £6,000 of it through the Coinstar machine.

Yesterday, his barrister, Oliver Jarvis, said Hurson would plead guilty to theft on the basis that he stole £1,473 during a month-long period.

Prosecutor, Richard Walters, said although the Crown did not accept that basis, both sums of money put the case into the same sentencing guideline bracket.

The court heard Hurson was sentenced to 300 hours of unpaid work at Bradford Magistrates Court in 2009 for attempting to steal two Royal Mail parcels when he was working as a postman.

Mr Walters said Hurson had been working as a car park attendant at Morrisons for three-and-a-half years when he was caught stealing.

Supermarket staff became suspicious when they saw him regularly changing considerable amounts of money for vouchers at Asda, located in Bradford Road.

Morrisons despatched a loss prevention officer to the store on May 27 to investigate the situation.

She saw Hurson empty coins from a parking machine into a carrier bag.

He said he was taking the cash to customer services but staff there said he had never left any money with them.

Hurson had 82 £1 coins in his shoes when he was apprehended, Mr Walters told the court.

Mr Jarvis said Hurson at first admitted stealing the money but then panicked and denied it at the magistrates court.

He had now "come to his senses" and is embarrassed and remorseful.

He lost his job with Morrisons and is now working as a contract cleaner and living in rented accommodation, Mr Jarvis added.

Judge Jonathan Durham Hall QC said: "A message has to be clearly understood that those in a position of authority, especially with previous convictions, who steal from their employer will go to prison."

Hurson had rifled parking machines into which law-abiding citizens had put their hard-earned money.

"It was deliberate, thoughtful, purposeful stealing from the machines," Judge Durham Hall added.

"This was a blatant offence, in breach of your job, in breach of trust."

Hurson had carried on stealing until he was caught.

The judge set a Proceeds of Crime Act timetable to claw back the money from Hurson.

The confiscation proceedings will take place at the crown court at a later date.

[DB1100]

A section I once worked on fell under suspicion with exactly that sort of scam - some bloke not working on our section was sorting mail to his delivery - which was another village altogether. It was very disturbing to find out afterwards that we had been followed by the SIB for some time before the eventual culprit was discovered - not that we had anything to hide and it was probably a vindication of how we worked.

SIB? dbvuk55,I think you have gone back to a previous life,when we wore green old friend.