A debt-stricken thief on benefits who pinched post from a letterbox was only rumbled when her victim ‘laid a trap’ to uncover the banking scam.
‘Foolish’ Shadika Campbell intercepted letters delivered to the victim’s postbox in a ploy to help fraudsters secretly rack up debts in his name.
But the 36-year-old was caught in the act after Mr Compton set a cunning decoy when he spotted the criminal ‘acting suspiciously’ outside his Black Country home.
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The victim’s suspicions were raised when a neighbour told him to check his CCTV after a black woman, donning a black cap, was lurking outside his front door.
Footage from his Wolverhampton property captured a woman seemingly delivering leaflets between 10.30am and 11am in October 2018.
She was spotted the next day following the postman and carrying leaflets – but no leaflets were delivered to the family’s external postbox.
Mr Compton called police but they claimed they could not send an officer to his Argil Close home, Wolverhampton Crown Court heard.
Instead, he decided to ‘lay a trap’ and placed junk mail in the letterbox before collecting his letters directly from the postman.
He kept watch from a window and noticed Campbell – of Manor House Close, Bescot – pinching the junk mail from the letterbox just 30 seconds after the postman arrived.
