WOLVERLEY postman Mitchell Rickson has been ordered to carry out 120 hours of community work after he admitted delaying mails and making false claims for payment.

Kidderminster magistrates imposed the punishment order and told him he must pay £340 compensation and £300 costs.

Post Office detectives who searched his home in Mill Lane, Wolverley, found bundles of mail in the house, in the garden shed and in the boot of his car, the court was told.

Rickson, 37, admitted delaying the mail and claiming, by deception, £340 of a special allowance made to postmen who delivered advertising material.

No envelope had been opened and nothing had been stolen, said John Dove, prosecuting for the Post Office.

The investigators found 16 first class letters, dating back to 1999, 22 second class items and 20,000 leaflets of unaddressed advertising which the Post Office contracted to deliver on behalf of large retailers.

Rickson signed to say he had delivered the mail and drew the fee, said Mr Dove.

Rickson's solicitor, Mark Sheward, said he had been dismissed when the offences came to light in June.

Before then he had worked for two years without complaint.

The routine was upset when his partner had to leave home to care for her terminally ill mother.

She was away for several months, leaving him to care for children aged 11 and nine.

He had to take them to school, then cycle into the Kidderminster sorting office to collect his mail, deliver it in the village, return to the office, then back to Wolverley to look after the children.

There was no attempt to destroy the accumulated mail, Mr Sheward said.

Everything was there for the investigators to find.