Saturday, March 11, 2017

Mailbox tampering ... no felony here?

Kilcullen is a proud community, rightly proud of the very many good people in our town, writes Brian Byrne.

Those of us whose families have lived here for generations, and those who are more recently here love our place, and our neighbours.

Which makes it all the more difficult to swallow what the very few bad eggs do. Like the dumbos who ripped the cover off a local resident's post box on Thursday night.

"Whoever wilfully or maliciously injures, tears down or destroys any letter box or other receptacle intended or used for the receipt or delivery of mail on any mail route, or breaks open the same or wilfully or maliciously injures, defaces or destroys any mail deposited therein, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both."

Unfortunately, the foregoing regulation is a US federal law, where they take the protection of the mails very seriously indeed, and the said fine can be up to $250,000. There doesn't seem to be a similar mail tampering legislation here (but let me know if there is) except for interfering with an An Post letter posting box.

Meantime, the gardai have been notified about this local incident. Vandalism is a crime in itself. However, rarely resulting in imprisonment.

ED NOTE: Compare and contrast with the tree planting by primary school students in the Valley today. There's always more good than bad.