Postie’s £50,000 dog bite
She sues after losing two fingers in delivery attack
A POSTIE whose fingers were bitten off by a dog as she put a card through a letterbox is suing Royal Mail for £50,000.
Clare Offord, 41, had been doing the job for only five months when she lost large parts of two of her fingers.
She had put her hand through the letterbox to deliver a ‘missed parcel’ card when the dog bit her.
She was taken to hospital for surgery, but was left without most of the ring and middle fingers on her left hand.
Suing her employer at Central London County Court, Mrs Offord claims Royal Mail failed to ensure she was safe on the route, which was not her usual round.
But Royal Mail lawyers deny liability for her injuries and dispute the £ 50,000 she is claiming in compensation.
Her barrister, Ben Rodgers, said: ‘The claimant has lost the larger part of two fingers on her left hand. Her fingers are not going to grow back.’
Mrs Offord, a mum from Essex, was a part-time relief postie when she was asked to cover for a colleague in Romford, east London, in February 2016. The colleague had noted the presence of the dog on the delivery round, her lawyers claim, after it was ‘aggressive’, biting and pulling post through the letterbox.
But this was not recorded on the ‘walk log’ postmen fill out to warn colleagues of risks or vulnerable residents, court documents say, so she did not realise the danger she was in.
Her lawyers said: ‘She was delivering a parcel. She rang the doorbell. The occupier did not answer the door. The claimant, as she had been trained to, filled out a form P739 – “Something for you”.
‘She pushed the form through the letterbox. As she did so, the dog bit her, causing serious injury to her fingers.’
Mrs Offord’s legal team say she had been told not to leave items hanging out of a letterbox in case they are stolen.
But she had not been given a posting peg, a plastic device used to push mail into a letterbox so postmen don’t have to put their fingers through. At a preliminary hearing, Mr Rodgers told Judge Caroline Wilkinson that the owner of the dog was convicted under the Dangerous Dogs Act.
The owner paid fines, compensation and costs of £8,793, from which Mrs Offord received £2,764. The dog faces being put down if it attacks again.
But Mrs Offord decided to sue Royal Mail and not the dog owner because of alleged ‘wider issues’ at the Romford sorting office, Mr Rodgers said.
The walk log for the route had not been updated since 2011, and managers had failed to take ‘reasonable care for the safety of their post persons’.
Royal Mail says dogs attack 47 posties every week.
‘Not going to grow back’