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A west Belfast postman who stole almost 1,000 items of mail from his delivery round has narrowly avoided prison.
Judge Gordon Kerr KC handed Dylan Catney a 24-month sentence on Friday and suspended it for two years, describing his criminal behaviour as a “serious breach of trust”.
Catney (26), of Dart Hill in the Andersonstown area of the city, had previously pleaded guilty to charges of theft of Royal Mail items and a postal operator interfering with mail packets.
Belfast Crown Court heard the offences were committed on dates between November 14, 2023 and April 17, 2024 while he was employed by Royal Mail as a postman.
He started his employment on October 8, 2023, working until May 18, 2024 when he formally resigned.
At the time he was living at an address in Belfast with his grandfather and in August 2024 an abandonment notice was served on the property as his grandfather no longer lived at that address.
Prosecution barrister Bobbie-Leigh Herdman said after the locks were changed on the property, a housing officer went to inspect the house and discovered “two trays and four sacks of mail” inside.
Ms Herdman told the court: “The housing officer reported this discovery to Royal Mail who collected the two trays and four mail sacks.
“In total, 959 items of mail were recovered and many of the items were found to have been open.
”Among the items were 40 loose Christmas cards which had been opened and the suspicion was that they were opened to check to see if there was cash or other items of value inside.
“Many private and personal messages were inside the cards and other items of mail including letters from hospitals, doctors and the Inland Revenue were found but were unopened.”
Ms Herdman said samples of the items were analysed by Royal Mail and showed they should have been delivered by Catney on his round between November 2023 and April 2024.
The court heard Catney was interviewed on two occasions by police and answered no comment to all questions and provided no explanation as to why he had the mail items at home.
His defence barrister said Catney suffers ADHD and during the period of his offending he was “struggling with his ADHD and did not have the motivation to go to work and instead of delivering the mail items he took them home”.
The prosecutor added that although it was suspected the opened mail contained cash and other items of value, that could not be proved beyond a reasonable doubt.
Judge Kerr said the aggravating features were that it was a “significant breach of trust as he was acting as a postal operator and used his position to steal and not deliver the mail”.
In a pre-sentence report, a probation officer wrote that Catney was diagnosed with ADHD at the age of 11 and received medication for his condition.
During the Covid pandemic he was employed in a call centre, but left after six months as he “couldn’t sit all day”.
The report said after he resigned from Royal Mail, Catney obtained his HGV licence and now works as a lorry driver earning £500 per week.
He expressed remorse to the probation officer and said the “job just got on top of him” and because of his ADHD “he simply could not do the job and instead of owning up he decided to hide it”.
Said Judge Kerr: “This is a serious breach of trust by a person performing a public service and the breach of trust was capable of causing upset and distress to members of the public.
“He was in effect caught red handed. Although this was a serious breach of trust case this was not a breach of trust which came from anything other than the fact that this was unfortunately a man who suffered from ADHD which affected the way he behaved, worked and acted.”
The judge added: “The reality is he should never have been in this job.”
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