AN Ipswich postal worker who stole £975 which had been planted in a test package by suspicious Royal Mail staff has been warned he faces a prison sentence.

Julian Green, 54, of Prittlewell Close, Ipswich had denied stealing £975 from the Royal Mail on August 12 2010 and converting criminal property in 2009 but was found guilty of both charges after a week long trial at Ipswich Crown Court.

Adjourning sentence until March 27 for a pre-sentence report from the probation service, Recorder Craig Ferguson told Green the offences were a “serious breach of trust” and he faced a “very real risk” of a prison term being imposed when he is sentenced later this month.

During his trial Green told the court that it wasn’t in his nature to be dishonest and that even if he had been tempted to steal mail he wouldn’t have done so under the nose of Royal Mail investigators, who he knew were working at the Ipswich sorting office on the day in question.

Green denied that £500 worth of foreign currency that had been exchanged and paid into his father’s bank account had come from a special delivery package that was never received by a customer.

Green’s sister told the court that she had sent the money over for her father after she was forced to cancel a holiday.

The court was told that a test package, containing £975, had been taken to the special delivery area at the Ipswich sorting office where Green was working.

After the envelope containing the money was left with Green he took it to a walk-in safe and when he came out it appeared the envelope had been tampered with, Adrian Chaplin, prosecuting, said.

When the envelope was examined by investigators the £975 was missing and it had never been recovered.

The converting criminal property charge related to 24,100 Mauritian rupees worth between £472 and £500 which had been sent by special delivery to a customer but had never been received.

It was later discovered that 24,100 Mauritian rupees had been exchanged and paid into a bank account in the name of Green’s father, said Mr Chaplin.

During the trial the court heard from a number of Green’s colleagues who described him as “hard-working and honest”.