A judge has jailed a former post office assistant for stealing cash and ordered an inquiry into the evidence put before the jury during her trial.

Amina Data, 37, of Spencer Road, Bradford, was yesterday found guilty on 31 charges of theft and locked up for nine months.

Data, who had denied all the offences, was convicted of intercepting dozens of benefit books which were delivered to the Southfield Lane post office.

At the start of her trial at Bradford Crown Court, prosecutor David Mitchell said the charges covered a sum of almost £4,000, but the actual number of transactions involved was 231 and the total value was in excess of £18,000.

The prosecution alleged that between January 1994 and February 1995, Data, who had no previous convictions, used complete books to steal money or passed them on to claimants with one or two weekly orders missing.

Passing sentence, Recorder Roger Keen QC said Data had systematically defrauded the Department of Social Security.

In addition to jailing her, Recorder Keen also ordered her to pay £4,000 towards the costs of the prosecution and compensation in the sum of £3,977.

At the end of the case, he told Mr Mitchell: "During the course of this case I have been dismayed to see the nature of the defence. It is clear from the jury's verdict that they are sure that a number of people have put their heads together to produce lying documents and to giving lying evidence.

"I consider what has happened here is so serious that all the papers should be looked at by the Chief Constable to consider whether criminal offences have been committed by the witnesses appearing in the case."

A West Yorkshire police spokesman said: "We will study the Judge's comments when they have been passed onto us."

A spokesman for Post Office Counters stressed that the post office provided a safe system to prevent cases of fraud which had proved effective "in this case".

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.