Missing post found in attic (From Gazette)

Royal Mail investigates missing mail found in home

7:50am Wednesday 10th February 2010 in News By Tom Parkes

TWO sacks full of undelivered post have been discovered in the attic of a former postman’s home.

Following a Gazette investigation, Royal Mail is looking into the case after the home’s new owners stumbled on the stash of birthday cards and other mail.

It is believed the sacks contained more than a thousand items, which are now being delivered up to eight years after they were posted.

Gazette readers have contacted the paper to report greetings cards sent as far back as 2002 have now turned up, and they claim small gifts of cash which relatives had sent to their children are missing.

Greg Lovell has received two birthday cards for son Cameron from his cousin Margaret Kilsby, who has since died.

The 39-year-old, of Rangoon Close, Colchester, said: “The cards would have been for his eighth and ninth birthdays, and now he is 13!

“We know one of them was sent with a £10 note in it, but it wasn’t in there.”

Jane O’Marney, of Crown Bays Road, said: “I had a birthday card through from my mum for my eldest daughter Melanie, who’s now 33.

“I know for sure it would have had a fiver or a tenner in it, but there was nothing there.”

For several years, retired postie James Paterson, now in his late sixties, used to live in the Colchester bungalow where the mail was found, at Broad Oaks Park, off St John’s Road.

It was discovered by the family who bought the property after he sold up and moved to retirement flats in Guildford Road with his wife Susan.

The Gazette has made numerous attempts to contact him and spoke to his wife, who said: “He wouldn’t want to talk about that. No comment.”

Royal Mail declined to comment specifically on the case, but said it has a zero-tolerance policy on theft and always prosecutes postal workers found to have tampered with the mail.