A POSTMAN has pleaded guilty to stealing more than 130,000 undelivered letters, packages and leaflets - including over 5,000 in Nantwich.

Nicholas Fryer, aged 31, admitted stealing 5,577 postal packages belonging to the Royal Mail between January 1999 and May 2004 in Nantwich.

He also pleaded guilty to stealing 127,918 postal packets between January 1999 and May 2004 at Audley in Staffs.

Fryer was caught after Royal Mail internal investigators became suspicious of his activities. After raiding his house they found thousands of undelivered letters - some posted as far back as 1999.

Fryer, who was based at the Kidsgrove delivery office, appeared at Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court, where he pleaded guilty to the two theft charges.

He also admitted three counts of false accounting and three counts of obtaining a money transfer by false deception.

These additional six charges relate to falsifying documents for door-to-door control sheets.

Fryer, dressed in a grey pin-striped suit and white shirt, sat glum and ashen-faced as the charges were read out.

Prosecutor Errol Ballantine told the court that whenever packages 'contained valuables' Fryer kept them.

But defence counsel Michael Anning said his client took the valuable items out of packages 'not to retain them but to dispose of them separately' so as not to draw attention to them.

The case was adjourned for pre-sentence reports, while Fryer was granted conditional bail and ordered to reappear before the court on December 17 for sentencing.

Judge William Everard told Fryer to expect a custodial sentence.

He said: "You must realise that someone in your position stealing from the Royal Mail is a particularly serious offence.

"The chances are that a case of this gravity will have to involve a prison sentence."

After the case Royal Mail's area general manager Doug Neal said: "We would like to offer an apology to anyone whose mail was delayed or tampered with by Fryer.

"He was in a unique position of trust and our customers deserved better."