Post Office Manager “borrows” €22,000

Ken Dalton was a Post Office Manager at Ringsend Post Office in Fitzwilliam Point but when cashing up at the end of the day back in late summer 2008 he found a shortfall of €450. Most people would contact the owner, in this case Mr Mark Harrison, and apologise and possibly offer to pay the money back but not Mr Dalton. He decided a better route would be to borrow some more money from the Post Office and place a bet or two to win the money back. You can guess that of course he lost his bets and that started the cycle of borrowing more and more money and placing bigger and bigger bets to recoup his losses. It is not clear whether he was betting at an online casino or at a high street bookmaker but one day an official arrived unannounced to do an audit and found some €22,000 missing. At Dublin Circuit Criminal Court Judge Frank O’Donnell remanded Mr Dalton on bail pending sentencing in June. Shortly before his arrest police made a search of his house and found betting slips. Mr Dalton admitted 9 counts of theft but his defence counsel, Mr Rory Staines, told the court that he had no history of trouble with the police and made a dreadful mistake in trying to cover up the missing money. Apparently Mr Dalton wants to pay back the money to Mr Harrison but as he is on welfare this seems unlikely to happen. One of our tips is never to borrow money to gamble and this just goes to prove the point.