Residents' post dumped behind rubbish bins

CONFIDENTIAL post including residents bank statements, cheques and rental dvds, have been dumped among rubbish in a front garden in West Hampstead. A resident found the bundle of more than 50 personal letters behind her bins in Greencroft Gardens on Mond

CONFIDENTIAL post including residents' bank statements, cheques and rental dvds, have been dumped among rubbish in a front garden in West Hampstead.

A resident found the bundle of more than 50 personal letters behind her bins in Greencroft Gardens on Monday.

The woman, who did not wish to be named, returned it to the post office and the Royal Mail is investigating.

She said: "I recognised neighbours' names in the mail because I checked there wasn't any of my post in there. It is confounding. Why it would be there? It really worries me."

Area delivery representative for the Communication Workers' Union, Tony Davies, claimed post is now often being dumped.

"We believe this was done by a casual worker. The Royal Mail can't cope so they have to have casuals to take over the work," he said. "This has been a problem since they brought in changes to working practices and they made a lot of redundancies. The casuals are not trained and are not as skilful as the regular postmen."

Among the letters were a number of bank statements, at least one cheque and movies from I Love Film.

A Royal Mail spokeswoman said: "We are grateful to your reader for handing the mail in. We take breaches of security of mail very seriously and we are currently investigating this incident."

The results of a national CWU ballot on whether members will back a nationwide walkout is expected today. A one-day London-wide strike is planned for Saturday.