PTSD postman avoids jail after admitting charge of stealing sacks of mail

A CO ANTRIM postman who pleaded guilty to stealing mail after he was found with five large bags of post in his car has avoided jail.

Alan Pattison appeared yesterday at Ballymena Magistrates Court, where he was ordered to do 100 hours of unpaid work and put on probation for a year.

Pattison (54), with an address at Thomas Street, Ballymena, previously admitted stealing mail over seven months in 2017.

A prosecutor said police had spoken to the defendant around 11.30pm in November last year at Ecos Park in Ballymena and five large Royal Mail bags of post were found in the boot of his car.

Other items of mail were then located at his address and it was established he was a former post-

Guilty plea: Alan Pattison

man who had been dismissed two weeks earlier.

Pattison claimed he found the bags, but later pleaded guilty to a charge of theft of items of post.

Defence barrister Neil Moore said it was accepted it was a “serious breach” of trust. He said Pattison had not been opening the mail and it had been sent on to the intended recipients.

The barrister said Pattison told him he “couldn’t cope with the stress of the workload”.

Mr Moore said the defendant had been in the Army and also worked for London Fire Brigade for 17 years and had developed Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as a result of having to remove dead bodies from fires and seeing suicides on Tube lines.

The lawyer said at the time counselling was “not encouraged” but that had now changed.

District Judge Nigel Broderick told Pattison such a breach of trust would result in a custodial sentence. But he added that “everything has a context” and he referred to the contents of a detailed report from a psychiatrist which diagnosed the defendant as having PTSD.