A FORMER postal worker who stole nearly £1,000 from special delivery mail has been jailed for eight months.

Sentencing Julian Green, of Prittlewell Close, Ipswich, Recorder Craig Ferguson said: “Such crimes by postal workers undermine public confidence in the Royal Mail.

“A high degree of trust was reposed in you.”

The judge also told the 54-year-old that stealing £975 which had been planted in a test package by suspicious Royal Mail staff was “brazen”, as he knew investigators were in the postal centre at the time.

During his Ipswich Crown Court trial Green denied stealing £975 from the Royal Mail on August 12, 2010, and converting criminal property in 2009.

However, he was found guilty of both charges.

Green had 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 Mauritian Rupees which had been exchanged in 2009, and paid into his father’s bank account over which he had power of attorney, had come from a special delivery package that was never received by a customer.

The case had been intended as honeymoon spending money for a bride.

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

The court was told 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 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.

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

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

Green had been employed by the Royal Mail in Ipswich for more than 20 years. During that time he had also worked as a postman and delivery worker.