A FORMER postman from Middlewich was jailed after being found guilty of interfering with post and stealing from his employer.

Magistrates gave Barry David Hough, 20, of Sandown Road, three months in a young offenders' institute when he was sentenced at Northwich Magistrates' Court on Wednesday.

He had admitted interfering with packages and was found guilty of theft at a trial on August 23.

Lachlan Nesbet, prosecuting on behalf of Royal Mail, said Hough's vehicle was searched on March 18 after a high number of complaints relating to his Winsford round.

A number of mistreated and opened packages were found in the vehicle and in his house, along with 1,690 items of unaddressed business post, for which he was paid additional sums to deliver.

When first interviewed by police he claimed to have found the unopened mail and was not sure what to do with it so left it in his vehicle and forgot about it, but admitted that he had opened some of the packages at a later interview.

Mr Nesbet said: "This is clearly a serious offence of theft from an employer and a breach of trust."

Chris Johnson, defending, said: "He has throughout accepted that he was a poor and lazy postman. He had been with the post office for four months and it was clearly a job that wasn't suiting him.

"He has to accept some dishonesty, claiming to have delivered items he's not actually delivered, but what he's never accepted was that he had been more culpably dishonest by actually stealing from postal packages."

Chairman of the bench Keith Oakes said: "This is so serious we must consider passing a custodial sentence."