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Postman fired as hidden letters found

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By Fiona Reid
Front
Postman fired as hidden letters found

A POSTMAN from Dumfries has been sacked after failing to deliver letters dating back more than two years.

But after raising the alarm, Fiona Boyle has hit out at Royal Mail for failing to tell customers what had happened.
Fiona said: “They’re saying they’re sending out covering letters to explain this, but they’re not. There’s been nothing.”
It was only because Fiona noticed that three letters which started arrived to her in the Annan Road area in the past week were postmarked from December 2012 that the situation came to light.
She said: “There was never a covering letter — they’d just been interspersed with the normal mail.”
Fiona’s post included an invoice, which she said had forced the company to send out another one at the time when the first hadn’t arrived.
And although none was vital, Fiona said: “What happens if somebody had a job interview or job offer, or if it was a cheque or money?”
Fiona says she ‘cannot speak highly enough’ of her regular postman, praising the vast bulk of those who work in Royal Mail.
And she believes that the person now dismissed may have been someone covering a holiday period, having been told by another postal worker that a large amount of missing post had been found in the their garden shed.
But angry at Royal Mail’s handling of the situation, sending out the missing letters mixed in with current post, Fiona said: “The way it came across to me is they just hope you don’t notice —  ‘We’ll just shove it in the normal mail and we’ll hope they don’t notice’.”
She said: “They should have taken these, noted there was an issue, and sent a letter.
“That’s all we’re after. Where have they been and why have they been there, and why has it taken them three years for them to notice?”
Royal Mail say they have taken action following the discovery of the missing post.
A spokeswoman said: “After a Royal Mail investigation, one of our postmen in Dumfries has been dismissed for the wilful delay of mail due to be delivered to customers.
“The mail has now been delivered to customers with a covering letter explaining what has happened. Royal Mail apologises for any inconvenience or distress this may have has caused.”
She added: “The safety and security of mail is of the utmost importance to this business and Royal Mail will not allow the actions of any individual to damage the good reputation of our thousands of hard-working postmen and women.”

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