A FORMER postman delayed the delivery of 1,800 letters in Mid Cheshire.
John O'Dea, of Town Farm Lane, Norley, pleaded guilty to four charges of delaying delivery of postal packages of varying amounts at Northwich Magistrates Court on Monday.
O'Dea, 32, was prosecuted by his former employers, Consignia, who are looking for £60 compensation to cover the extra expenses the company incurred by sending the delayed items special delivery.
The court heard that O'Dea had been a postman for 18 months and was of previously good character.
He had not tampered with any of the items and it was a matter of delaying their delivery rather than stealing them for personal gain.
Alistair Gillespie, prosecuting, said that on April 6 this year, a passer-by had spotted a man in a postman's uniform dumping packages in woods at Whitegate.
The woman returned to the woods the following day and found that the packages were still there. She contacted Royal Mail to tell them what she had found and this led to the defendant being interviewed, although at first he denied the allegations.
The police were called and 1,400 items of post were found in the bag that had been dumped in the woods, along with another 340 postal items in O'Dea's car and four on O'Dea himself.
Once the police had arrived, O'Dea retracted his earlier denials and admitted that he had dumped the items in question and that he had done so on five or six occasions.
He was suspended from duty and resigned the following day.
The case was adjourned and O'Dea was granted unconditional bail until he is sentenced on August 13.
