Shock after hundreds of letters found dumped on country road and layby

Royal Mail has launched an investigation after "hundreds" of undelivered letters were "discarded" on a country road, with more being found on a layby.

An estimated 600 unopened letters in total have now been handed into a Northern Ireland assembly member's office.

On Wednesday, Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) MLA Mark H Durkan was contacted by a member of the public who was on the Mobuoy Road and found a bag, which he opened and "to his horror" they contained "hundreds of items of unopened mail" of a personal nature.

Then on Thursday afternoon, a different person left more letters into Durkan's office. He said those letters were found in a "totally different location".

Durkan said that the second bag was found by a woman in the Victoria Road area.

"There's a layby there and she had stopped to take a picture of a nice sunset yesterday evening.

"She happened to see a bundle of mail sort of over the fence virtually on the bank of the river Foyle," Durkan explained.

He said what had happened was "inexcusable".

A Royal Mail spokesperson said: "Our teams will work to recover and process the items so they can be returned to the postal network and delivered to customers."

The member of the public who found the letters on Wednesday got in touch with Durkan who passed them on to police.

The police said follow-up inquiries led to the "discovery and seizure" of a further quantity of mail.

Durkan said the discovery of large amounts of personal mail was "absolutely shocking".

"It is my understanding that there were other similar bags strewn around the area.

"There must be a full investigation into this appalling situation, proper accountability."

Durkan said many of the letters appear to have been sent by health trusts, government departments and banks, and are likely to contain confidential, sensitive information.

He now fears some people may have missed important correspondence, potentially affecting their access to essential services.

"This is a bag of mail that contains really important information that people are sitting at home waiting for and have been sitting at home waiting for.

"And they would never have got had this not been discovered," he told Evening Extra.

In a statement, the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) said they received a report on Wednesday "in relation to the discovery of postal mail at a location in the area of Mobuoy Road".

"Follow-up enquiries by police led to the subsequent discovery and seizure of a further quantity of mail.

"Police enquiries are ongoing, and officers are liaising with Royal Mail in respect of the matter."