Second case of Royal Mail re-employing sacked worker

Following the conviction of yet another postal worker for theft concerns are continuing to grow about the current state of the Royal Mail.

Once again a postal worker who had already been sacked managed to get a job at the Acton mail office using a false name and then preceeded to systematically loot the mail he was responsible for delivering.

Isleworth Crown Court heard how Eddy Nduwimana, aged 38, had been put under surveillance by the Royal Mail after suspicions were raised about missing packages. Investigators followed him and noted that he was taking bundles of mail and depositing them in his car which was parked on his route. When he was approached by the investigators it emerged that most of the mail he had put in the car was of a financial nature such as cheque books and credit cards.

Nduwimana, who lives at Broxholme House, Harwood Road, Fulham was arrested and admitted to the theft. It later emerged that he had previously worked at Hammersmith sorting office for 5 months in 2003 and was suspended when mail he was responsible for sorting was found in the waste outside his home. He returned to work for the Royal Mail under a false identity and declared that he had no previous convictions.

He was jailed for 20 months.

The case comes just a few weeks after an almost identical one in which a post office worker had returned to work at the post office in Chiswick having been convicted of theft.

Reports of missing mail appear to have risen substantially since the postal system was reorganised. A spokesman for the Royal Mail has denied that there is a problem saying the amount of lost or stolen mail is a tiny proportion of the daily mail bag. There was no comment on measures that are to be taken to ensure that the Royal Mail does not employ workers who have previously been sacked from the service for dishonesty.

February 15, 2005