BEGUM: POST OFFICE MANAGER STOLE BONDS

A post office manager stole more than £18,000 by taking advantage of a weakness the company’s computer system to issue fake cash bonds to herself.

Jahira Begum, 24, issued fictitious postal orders for the maximum £250 a time and then cancelled them, Snaresbrook Crown Court heard.

Begum then took advantage of the short delay for the system to update itself by cashing the orders before they became void.

But auditors at the company’s national database were none the wiser about the scam, jurors were told.

Alexandra Ward, prosecuting, told how Begum started working as a member of counter staff for the Post Office in Forest Gate in 2005.

She moved to become the manager of the Porters Avenue branch in Dagenham in Spring 2009, where she spent most of the time running the small branch on her own, the court heard.

‘It was at that point that the crown say she began to steal money from the post office system,’ said Ms Ward.

‘What Jahira Begum did whilst working at the post office was she would issue a postal order to a fictitious customer.

‘She would then cancel it, and she would use the same postal order to cash it.’

The slips, which can be bought up to the value of £250 each, are like pre-paid cheques which can be cashed in for the same amount at any post office branch.

The post office tills are linked up to a nationwide computer system called Horizon, but it would take several minutes to update and recognise that the postal order had been cancelled.

During these moments Begum would cash the bond, which she placed in the till as a receipt, without any marking on it to indicate it had been cancelled.

The computer would not recognise that the bond had been issued, while the cancelled bond in the till would act as a receipt for the money taken, meaning that the tills still balanced, the court heard.

The manageress issued herself 74 postal orders over eight months, worth a total of £18,450.

‘All but one was to the value of £250, which was say is significant, because it was targeting the highest value of postal orders,’ said Ms Ward.

The defendant denies that she was behind the thefts, claiming that someone else at the post office must have been to blame, the court heard.

Begum, of (23) Charlecroft Road, Dagenham, Essex, denies one count of theft between 14 May 2009 and 29 January 2010.

The trial continues.
ends