40,000 items of mail found in skip

A retired postman is at the centre of a Royal Mail inquiry after a haul of 40,000 undelivered items of mail was discovered in skips.

A total of 3,000 undelivered letters, at least one-year overdue, were among the find which mostly included discarded door-to-door leaflets.

They were found by workers sorting through skips delivered to a recycling plant in Ystradgynlais, in the Swansea Valley, south Wales.

Managers at the plant called in the police who in turn brought the situation to the attention of the Royal Mail.

Investigators with the Royal Mail visited the scene and needed three vans to carry the discarded items away with them. It has now launched an internal investigation and warned that it has the power to bring its own criminal prosecutions.

In the meantime the Royal Mail is setting about re-sending all 3,000 undelivered letters recovered from the skips. Each letter will be accompanied by a written apology to every customer affected by the problem.

The letters themselves were all destined for addresses in the Swansea Valley and neighbouring Amman Valley areas.

“We are conducting an investigation and it involves a former postman who is now retired. That is the situation at the moment,” a spokeswoman for the Royal Mail said. She added: “All the letters will be re-delivered as soon as possible, probably within the next week.”

She said that the Royal Mail had the power to bring its own prosecution without necessarily involving the police. If it was found that the current situation warranted such action a criminal prosecution would be pursued.

She added such incidents were rare and only 0.006% of the annual 22 billion items the Royal Mail delivers nationally was lost or stolen. “Our internal investigations team are currently conducting inquiries into the incident and we will be re-delivering as much recoverable mail as soon as possible,” he added.

Blimey – wonder how many people will be getting Christmas cards from 2003? :lol:

Or worse…birthday cards delivered to people who have died since they were sent :shock: