Postman jailed for dumping 10k letters

A POSTMAN was jailed for four months yesterday for dumping over 10,000 letters over a six-month period as the judge said people were depending on him and he let them down.

Daniel O’Regan, of 6 Ard Abhainn, Knockraha, Co Cork, pleaded guilty at Cork District Court to three charges arising out of his actions. Sentencing had been adjourned a number of times before yesterday’s four-month jail sentence.

Judge Con O’Leary said: “I am not going to give a licence to postmen to dump mail. He has not put up anything in his defence to take it out of the very serious.”

Eddie Burke, defending, referred to the fact that the postman had been trying to combine minding his children and doing his work but that he totally accepted that responsibility for his actions rested solely with himself.

“He does not want to drag her (his wife) into this. He was shielding her which is why he was in this position,” Mr Burke said.

Judge O’Leary said: “He did not protect the people whose post he carried. There are too many people with medical appointments and financial matters — people whose lives depend on the post office.”

Mr Burke stressed that there was no theft involved and no suggestion of theft.

The judge said: “It is on the failure to deliver that he is being sentenced. People were depending on it to run their lives and he left them down.”

Recognisances in the event of an appeal were set at €400 cash.

Inspector Senan Ryan previously said the matter came to light on March 18 when more than 2,000 letters were found dumped in a field at Ard Abhainn.

The letters were taken to the An Post sorting office at Little Island and an internal investigation began. Within days an official complaint was made to gardaí and O’Regan was questioned.

The postman attended at Cobh Garda station where he admitted dumping the mail and said he dumped mail previously at Glounthaune. Almost 8,000 items of mail were recovered.

Mr Burke said that at the time of the offences he was getting up for work at 4am, delivering as much mail as he could and then returning home to get the children up and ready for school. Initially, he held on to the mail he could not deliver but eventually began to dump it.

O’Regan pleaded guilty to opening mail addressed to others, fraudulently retaining mail and destroying it on dates between September 2009 and February 2010.