A TRUSTED Royal Mail worker who stole £15,500 cash from special delivery envelopes sent from Wotton-under-Edge has been jailed.

Kim Bace, 53, had worked for Royal Mail for more than ten years and was employed in a high security area known as "the cage" at the Gloucester sorting office when she committed the offences, Gloucester crown court heard last week.

Bace, a mother, of Linden Road, Gloucester, sobbed in the dock as Judge Jamie Tabor QC jailed her for seven months.

He told her he had to send out a message that thefts by people in such trusted positions would always result in punishment.

Bace had admitted eight offences of theft from Royal Mail between July 26 last year and January 24 this year.

Prosecutor Richard Cole said that as well as £15,500 in cash she had also stolen £560 worth of stamps and 40 vehicle excise licences – which she had simply burnt.

All the envelopes she stole had been sent by special delivery from the post office at Wotton-under-Edge, he said.

Royal Mail investigators looking into the loss of the packets eventually caught her by setting a trap with a specially marked envelope containing £2,500 which was sent from Wotton, said Mr Cole.

When an investigator confronted her about the packet on January 23 this year she immediately admitted what she had been doing.

Steve Young, defending, said Bace, who took home £230 a week from her job, was unable to explain why she did it. She had no debts and lived a frugal lifestyle – as shown by the fact that at the time of her arrest there was still £4,300 she had not spent, he said.

She was now extremely remorseful and filled with a sense of shame that she would be suffering the disgrace of going to prison, said Mr Young.

Passing sentence, Judge Tabor said: "The Post Office remains the most important means of transporting very valuable parcels in this country.

It is absolutely essential that the public have complete confidence in the Post Office, which is a highly respected organisation still."