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A postal worker in Yate has avoided being sent to prison after he was found to have stolen scores of letters containing gift cards and cash.
Daniel Cole kept the letters and later spent the gift cards at stores in and around Bristol, magistrates heard.
The 39-year-old, from Nibletts Hill in St George, Bristol, was first arrested in the summer, and admitted stealing an ‘unknown number’ of postal packets and letters with thefts that dated back to the start of 2019.
He was ultimately charged with six separate counts connected to the thefts, and the scale of his thieving may never be known.
The biggest charge he faced was that at Yate between January 1, 2019, and July 30, he stole ‘an unknown number of postal packets’ containing three Next gift cards, to the value of £60, belonging to the Royal Mail Group.
Stealing the post is a specific offence and, in the time between any letter being posted and it being delivered, the post is technically the property of Royal Mail.
He also pleaded guilty to stealing 60 postal packets belonging to Royal Mail, whose value is unknown, between July 25 and July 30.
He pleaded guilty to a specific charge that he stole a postal packet containing a £40 Next gift card at Yate between July 8 and July 13 last year.
Cole, who pleaded guilty at the first opportunity when he was charged in court in November last year, also admitted two specific charges that he stole £15 in cash from two different women, Alison Greening and Lily Dawkins, between July 27 and July 30.
And a final charge Cole admitted to was spending some of the gift cards. He pleaded guilty to a charge that on July 12 at Next in Bristol, he bought clothes and paid for them using £100 on four Next gift cards.
For that offence alone, Cole was given a 24-week prison sentence at Bristol Magistrates’ Court, and for the other charges, he was jailed for two weeks each. That meant the overall length of sentence was 34 weeks – or nearly eight months.
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“The offence is so serious,” a statement from the magistrates said. “The reason for custody is that these were deliberate offences of fraud and theft whilst working in a position with a high degree of trust.”
The 34-week prison sentence was suspended for 18 months, and Cole was ordered to carry out 150 hours community service.
The magistrates also ordered him to repay the £15 he stole from the two women, and issued an order that the clothes he bought using the gift cards must be confiscated.
