A DRUNKEN man snatched 35 letters from a postman at a convenience store leaving the new Royal Mail recruit facing a loss of confidence, Bradford Crown Court heard.

Mohammed Afsar, 33, of Tong Street, Bradford, was originally charged with robbery of postal mail on the morning of December 11, 2021.

He denied the offence and his guilty pleas to theft and battery were accepted by the Crown.

Prosecutor Emily Hassell told the court today that Afsar went to Tong Street Convenience Store in Bradford with another male that morning and bought two small bottle of vodka.

When he came back again, he was drunk and the shopkeeper refused to serve him.

Afsar loitered outside and when the postman arrived to deliver the mail, he snatched 35 items from behind, making contact with his shoulder.

The police were alerted and items of post were recovered from Afsar shortly afterwards. But he had been punched on the nose by someone and there was blood on the letters.

Miss Hassell said the postman had just started his job and had suffered loss of confidence by losing the items of mail.

Afsar later failed to attend court and admitted a Bail Act offence after a Bench Warrant was executed.

His barrister, Allan Armbrister, said that years ago it was automatic imprisonment to steal even one item of mail.

But his client had no previous convictions and the assault on the postman was upsetting but very minor.

Afsar was a hardworking and industrious plumber now starting his own business.

Judge Colin Burn said it was a piece of drunken stupidity when Afsar was making a pest of himself at the shop. He was drunk when he went back a third time.

The theft was interference with an important means of communication. If final de-mands were not delivered, people could be cut off from utilities.

It ‘attacked the infrastructure,’ Judge Burn said.

The postman had only just started his job and he was accountable to his new employer for the items that were stolen. No one would be any the wiser as to whether the missing items were valuable or not.

Afsar had then had failed to attend for his sentence on a previous occasion.

He was sentenced to six weeks’ imprisonment, suspended for 12 months, with 160 hours of unpaid work and £85 court costs.