Postal worker jailed for stealing from mail

Nadia Oates
Nadia Oates



A Royal Mail worker has been jailed for stealing cash and gift vouchers from the post at the sorting office where she worked.

Just a few weeks after Russian-born Nadia Oates, 58, started work at the Slough sorting office, a gift voucher fell out of a torn envelope. Realising there was nothing to stop her spending it, she soon started ripping open cards and letters in the hopes of finding cash or vouchers inside.

She netted £3,000, which she used to send gifts to relatives in Russia, in an attempt to convince them she was rich.

But she was caught out when a customer complained that a £40 gift voucher had been taken from a birthday card. Several opened packages were found hidden where she worked, and 19 unused gift vouchers were found at her home.

"You were stealing to provide gifts and not necessities and it was greed, or an inability to face up to your personal situation with your family that led you to commit these crimes," said Judge Alexia Durran, sentencing Oates to a total of eight months in prison.

"You caused alarm, disappointment and distress to members of the public. You caused damage to the Royal Mail and members of the public."
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Royal Mail is extremely tight-lipped about theft figures, refusing Freedom of Information requests several times over the last few years - which it's allowed to do since its privatisation in 2013.

But earlier figures show that between three and four hundred staff were either fired or resigned after allegations of theft each year between 2007 and 2011.

Last September, Royal Mail worker Gavin Houldsworth was jailed for six months stealing mobile phones from a parcel depot in Leeds.

And in July, Darius Kaniava was convicted of stealing £550 in cash from five packages in two days. He was ordered to pay Royal Mail £15,698 to cover the costs of its investigation and for compensation to his victims.

But Royal Mail says it takes a 'zero tolerance approach to any dishonesty', and is starting to use sophisticated techniques to catch thieves. It trapped Andrew Barratt, for example, by fitting a tracking device to an iPad, posting it to an address on his round and then tracing it to his home.

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