Royal Mail manager stole over £50k from people’s packages

Jonathan Brooking stole £50,160 over an 18 month period, he said he ‘lost his morals’

A Royal Mail manager has been jailed for stealing money from customers’ packages for almost two years. Jonathan Brooking was a postman turned manager who identified packages that would contain money, before he paid the amounts in cash deposits into his bank account.

According to WalesOnline Brooking, 49, was caught following an internal investigation with the case going to Swansea Crown Court. Sophie Keegan, prosecuting, told the court that Brooking joined Royal Mail in 2004 and that by 2022 was a customer operations manager at the firm’s Bridgend sorting office.

She said Royal Mail began receiving numerous reports of Special Delivery packages containing money going missing in the Bridgend area and that as a result an investigation was launched. The court heard that investigators began analysing data including delivery statistics, work patterns, and rotas in an attempt to identify what was happening, and it decided to install covert CCTV cameras in the Bridgend office.

Managers at the site – including Brooking – were informed about the undercover operation, and the court heard that during the months the cameras were working no more packages went missing. The cameras were removed in 2024 and the thefts resumed.

The court heard that further investigative work was undertaken which led to Royal Mail being given powers to examine Brooking’s finances. It was discovered that between September 2022 and June 2024 the defendant had paid £50,160 in cash deposits into his Nationwide bank account.

In July last year the defendant attended a voluntary interview under caution with his union representative in which he denied any involvement in the thefts. The court heard that Brooking was seen to become “emotional” during the interview and, after asking for a break, made full admissions saying on occasions he would assist with sorting the mail if the office was short-staffed and would take the opportunity to put aside packages containing money which he would later remove.

The court heard Brooking resigned from work the day after the interview and signed over his £33,428 Royal Mail pension to the company. The prosecutor said the Royal Mail has paid out £47,000 in compensation to customers who lost their packages.

Jonathan Brooking, now of Bank Crescent, Stamford, Lincolnshire, had previously pleaded guilty to one count of theft when he appeared in the dock for sentencing. He has no previous convictions. Kevin Seal, for Brooking, said the defendant had started with the Royal Mail as a postman and, through hard work, and risen to become a manager.

He said when the family finances became “stretched” the defendant committed the opportunistic offences the court had heard about, initially with the intention that the moneys taken would be paid back – though he said the mechanism by which that would be achieved was not clear.

He said following the incident the defendant and his family had moved away from the area to make a fresh start, and he said as a result of his actions Brooking had lost his good character and his pension. He said the net result of the offending was that the family’s position was much worse after than it had been before.

The barrister added “Nobody feels the shame of the consequences of his actions for his family more than Jonathan Brooking” and he invited the court to step back from a sentence of immediate custody. Judge Geraint Walters noted that when asked by the author of the pre-sentence report why he had committed the offence, the defendant had replied that he had “lost his morals” – the judge said that was an accurate description.

The judge said the defendant had “succumbed to the temptation of stealing from the mail” leading to a detailed and prolonged investigation. He said it was a difficult case to sentence and noted that before sentencing guidelines “interference with the mail even on a modest scale” would almost invariably result in immediate custody. He said the sentencing regime was different now.

With a one-third discount for his guilty plea Brooking was sentenced to 12 months in prison suspended for two years, and was ordered to complete a rehabilitation course and do 300 hours of unpaid work in the community. The defendant was also made subject to a nightly curfew for the next three months.

The court heard that given Brooking had signed over his Royal Mail pension, there would be no proceeds of crime investigation.