Postman escapes jail term (From Penarth Times)

Postman escapes jail term

A PENARTH postman narrowly escaped a jail sentence after pleading guilty to stealing over 1000 postal packets and intentionally delaying the delivery of 4000 others after his job got too much for him to cope with.

Michael Hawkesford Lawrence, 51, of Glebe Street, took the job as a part-time postman at the Vale of Glamorgan delivery office last December covering various rounds as a "floating" postman.

A royal mail investigation team was called in because a large number of customer complaints had been registered about missing mail from Mr Lawrence's delivery office.

The items went missing between February 14 and March 19.

Investigators went to Mr Lawrence's home while he was taking a day's leave and found him in a distressed state.

On entering his home they discovered thousands of undelivered letters some of which had been torn into shreds.

Some were kept in his bedroom, others in black bags in the kitchen and in Mr Lawrence's car.

Several packets had been opened including one which contained a mobile phone and another cookery books which had not been recovered.

The court heard that Mr Lawrence suffers from depression and anxiety.

Defence barrister Rachel Knight told the court that Lawrence had "never put a foot wrong in his life."

She said he had struggled to complete the round as the job became too much for him but that Lawrence didn't want his bosses to know he couldn't cope as he was hoping for a permanent job in the Penarth sorting office.

Rachel Knight said: "For the three months he had the job he was getting up for work at 3am and not going to bed before midnight - in the end he just couldn't cope and got into a spiral of anxiety and depression."

Lawrence had also taken on responsibility for looking after his elderly father who had suffered a stroke.