Fragile? I’ll just chuck this one down the stairs

WITH an astonishing lack of care, a delivery driver hurls boxes containing fragile porcelain and china down a 15ft stairway.

The two boxes had £450 of antiques inside and customer Patrick Duffy was furious when he saw the courier from delivery firm Yodel handle them so roughly.

CCTV clearly showed the driver throwing the boxes down the concrete steps outside the block of flats in Bradford. Mr Duffy, 68, who had spent £450 on the antiques through eBay to resell, said: ‘It was absolutely disgusting. I watched as he took the boxes out of the back and threw them down the flight of 12 stairs without any care.

‘I’m a live-in caretaker for a block of flats and was working on a garden nearby when I saw the van pull up and the man start throwing the packages. I shouted at him and ran over to check the boxes. I was worried that the antiques I’d bought were going to be all smashed.

‘I got the impression he knew straight away what he’d done when I shouted him to stop. The only reason he stopped throwing them was because he saw me.’

Remarkably only one item – a coal scuttle – was broken. A Royal Doulton jug, some china horses and a porcelain and bronze urn all escaped damage.

Mr Duffy said Yodel had assured him the driver was no longer working for them. A spokesman said: ‘We have contacted Mr Duffy to apologise and offered a gift voucher as a gesture of goodwill. This behaviour clearly does not meet the high standards we expect from our colleagues and appropriate action has been taken.’