ROYAL Mail is sending letters of apology to hundreds of Dorchester customers after a postman retained mail for three months.

The employee is now the subject of a conduct case.

A resident of Cambridge Road said problems with the post started in the summer.

He said: "We've had post delivered at about 5pm and long delays where it just hasn't come for weeks.

"It meant I didn't get reminders about things like insurance and standing orders were affected."

He said he knew of other people in the area having problems as well and reported the issue to Royal Mail. Now he has had a letter from Royal Mail stating that post had been withheld by an employee.

The letter - from Joe Harris-Cormack, deliver office manager at a Royal Mail contact centre - expresses apologies for inconvenience or distress.

But the resident, who asks for his name to be withheld, said it was a poor apology.

He said: "It was just a standard letter sent out to everyone, I suppose, and in a blank envelope.

"It make me angry because they charge you if don't put the correct postage on a letter. I don't think much of this."

He said he believed the postman was unable to deliver all the mail during his round and was leaving it in his vehicle for another day. A spokesman for Royal Mail said the employee had held back a quantity of mail intended for around 500 addresses in the Cambridge Road area.

He said there was no evidence that any mail was tampered with but it had dated back more than three months.

The spokesman said: "Investigations by the Dorchester Delivery Office and Royal Mail Security Team regrettably discovered that a Royal Mail employee had wilfully delayed some mail for the area.

"Incidents of this nature are very rare and the overwhelming majority of our employees are honest and hardworking.

"Royal Mail takes a zero tolerance approach to such cases and the individual is now the subject of an ongoing conduct case."