DHL delivery driver who stole £53,000 of parcels including gold coins, jewellery and £7,400 Omega watch avoids jail because of prison overcrowding
- Steven Black stole the items from a Merseyside depot over a three-month period
- Court hears his wife and son would be homeless if he was jailed for offences
- Judge says recent Court of Appeal ruling on overcrowding influenced sentence
A DHL delivery driver who repeatedly stole valuable parcels worth more than £53,000 from his depot has walked free from court because of prison overcrowding.
Steven Black, 54, whose thefts took place within just three months on Merseyside, was told by Judge Stuart Driver KC that it was a ‘finely balanced’ sentencing exercise.
The judge said that a recent Court of Appeal ruling referred to prison overcrowding, which he said amounts to an emergency and is a reason for suspending prison sentences.
Liverpool Crown Court heard that Black’s wife is in poor health and if he was jailed she and their son would be at risk of losing their home.
Kate Morley, prosecuting, said that Black had been employed via an agency as a delivery driver for DHL for about 17 months.
The court heard that investigators became suspicious of Steven Black, pictured, after items started to disappear at times when he was working in the depot at Speke on Merseyside
She added: ‘DHL managers were investigating missing parcels sent by Royal Mint that had been going missing since December 2021. Their enquiries highlighted that the parcels were going missing from the Speke depot.
‘They had reviewed CCTV footage from the Speke depot from February and 26 April last year and had seen the defendant acting suspiciously, in that he was picking up small packages from the conveyor belt and looking closely at the labels, which contain sender details and sometimes a description.
‘They saw him take items from the conveyor belt without scanning them. As a result of that, the defendant essentially became a suspect.’
Investigations revealed that Black had been repeatedly stealing items, including 10 Britannia 10z gold coins worth almost £15,000, and gold jewellery from Bulgaria with a value of £23,588.
His haul also included an Omega watch worth £7,400, a £2,000 ring and a cast silver kilo bar worth £715 sent by the Royal Mint.
Miss Morley told the court that as part of the investigation it was discovered that on April 22 last year a computer tablet belonging to Amazon went missing from the Speke depot and again Black was working on that date.
She said: ‘An investigations specialist at Amazon contacted DHL and reported that the device, although only valued at £89.99, held a critical unreleased programme which was of value to the company.
‘Its intended recipient was an Amazon employee but it was found that the device had been registered under an email address of julieblack, who is the wife of the defendant. The tablet has not been recovered.’
The court heard that some of the items were recovered but items worth £20,112 are still missing and DHL is liable to pay compensation for items lost or stolen during the courier process.
Black, of Tenbury Close, Salford, pleaded guilty to seven theft offences. Three other theft charges were dropped.
The court heard that a computer belonging to an Amazon employee disappeared from the DHL depot and the company is liable to pay compensation for missing items (stock image)
He was sentenced to 10 months’ imprisonment, suspended for 12 months, and ordered to carry out 15 days’ rehabilitation activities and 70 hours’ unpaid work.
Matthew O’Neill, defending, said that Black has no previous convictions and is now working for another agency as a driver delivering pallets around the North West.
‘He can give no explanation how he finds himself before a court convicted of very serious theft matters,’ he said. ‘He had one or two financial problems but wasn’t financially desperate.’
The first theft had been ‘opportunistic’ and having got away with it he could not control himself and stole other items, added Mr O’Neill.
DailyMail
