Scotland: Royal Mail postman who left pensioner lying in snow sacked

Thomas McCafferty, 51, doing his mailing rounds in Falkirk, Scotland, when he found Patricia Stewart, 72, on the ground in front of her home, desperately trying to get up.

Instead of helping the elderly woman, who couldn’t get up on her own, he walked away without calling for help, claiming he was ‘completely incompetent’.

The shocking incident in February was caught on a neighbor’s doorbell camera.

Footage shows the Royal Mail staff member looking down at the woman among the two saying ‘I can’t help you, man’ – despite her pleas for assistance.

Fortunately, a Hermes delivery driver arrived shortly after Mr McCafferty and, with the help of a neighbour, lifted the pensioner off the snow-covered road.

The footage was later shared on Facebook by Sheryl Harkins, Stewart’s niece.

“If you listen closely, you’ll see here the postman says to my aunt, ‘I can’t help you, I’ve been at work since the xth time this morning in this weather’ and walks away leaving a lady behind. 72 year old man lying in the snow!

‘I honestly have no words for how disgusting this is, for one human being to treat another in this way the words let me down.’

Calls for Mr McCafferty to be sacked came from the abhorrent Falkirk community, while other postmen also said he had ‘stained’ the reputation of the local Royal Mail repository.

A former postman in the area told The Sun Online at the time: ‘I’m ashamed and embarrassed, I could never do that to anyone.

‘There are 120 positions up there [at the local depot], and we all get dull with the same brush.

‘We’re doing a lot of good, but he’s leaving us in big style, big style. I don’t think any human should behave like that. ‘

A spokesperson for Royal Mail told Metro.co.uk that their internal investigation into the incident is now complete.

They added: ‘We can confirm that the individual involved has left the business.

‘We have also now completed our internal investigation but we are unable to comment further on any of the results for security reasons.

‘We regret the suffering this incident has caused. We have contacted the relevant customer to express our apologies again and update them after the investigation is complete. ‘

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