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A dishonest postal worker stole letters and stamps but was given a very severe sentence in an historical case in North Wales. The thief, who worked in a Llandudno post office, was convicted and sentenced to 18 months with hard labour in the 1880s, showing how penal punishments have changed.
Newspaper reports at the time told how Charles Richard Chapplin, 24, a letter carrier, pleaded guilty to “feloniously stealing a post office letter” which was the property of the Postmaster General containing certain postage stamps, of the value of 13s 7d. He also pleaded guilty to having unlawfully and knowingly, by a certain false pretence, obtained from Joseph Henry Lacy, certain foreign postage stamps with intent to cheat and defraud him in Llandudno on January 13.
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North Wales Spring Assizes Court in Carnarvon (as it was then spelt) heard that Chapplin had started working at the Post Office in Llandudno in May 1882, and been in a position of trust for two years. But suspicions were aroused about his activities.
A witness who worked at the General Post Office told the court he had investigated this case after a number of complaints from people who had not received letters. During the month of January, five letters addressed to Mr Jones, of Llandudno Pier, all of which contained stamps, were lost.
Chapplin, a married father of one, admitted his crimes and the missing stamps were found in the prisoner’s house. The court heard he had not attempted to sell them nor convert them into money.
But prosecutor Trevor Parkins said the prosecution were performing a “public duty” in bringing the case and they had “no reason to recommend the prisoner to mercy”. The judge told Chapplin: “Prisoner at the bar, you have pleaded guilty, and the case against you is very, very clear, and it is evidence of a very serious character, because you, being entrusted by her Majesty’s Government with a duty which involves your having the direct and personal control over letters which are known to contain valuable property of every description, have taken advantage of that position by stealing the property entrusted to you.”
He added that Chapplin “actively carried on a trade of obtaining money because foreign stamps are as much money as a bank note or a shilling is because it is well known that in places like Llandudno, the public at large will buy and pay for them, I am sure I don’t know why, but they have a desire to collect them and you took advantage of that.”
He concluded that “Educated crime like yours is a very bad thing indeed. I have no desire to make the sentence more severe, but yours is a very serious case, and I cannot, in my conscience, give you less than 18 months’ hard labour.”
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