Postman stole toys to fund his cocaine habit

12 April 2012

A postman stole £2,000 worth of Christmas presents including toys to fund his cocaine habit.

Richard O'Brien, 42, who worked for the Royal Mail for almost two years, was caught with toys, CDs, books, footwear and iPods, Croydon crown court was told. He had intercepted the parcels, many of which were from Amazon, and taken them to the house of accomplice Amina Galaky, 25, planning to sell them on.

A passerby called police after seeing O'Brien hauling parcels from his Royal Mail van into the house in Sutton, Surrey.

O'Brien was spared jail after the court heard how the break-up of his marriage and the suicide of his father and sister had led him to steal.

He was sentenced to six months in jail, suspended for 18 months, and ordered to carry out 180 hours' unpaid work and pay £1,000 toward the costs of the prosecution.

Galaky was given a nine-month community order and will carry out 100 hours' unpaid work.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in