Camden News - by SIMON WROE Published: 17 July 2008
Mail service keys left in pillarbox
POST office chiefs were left a pillarbox shade of red after a member of staff left the keys to Camden’s postal system hanging in a West Hampstead mailbox. The error, which could have left the personal details of thousands of people exposed, was only remedied by a sharp-eyed schoolboy.
Taylor Jenkins, aged seven, spotted the precious bunch of keys in the lock of an open pillarbox in Limington Road as he was walking home with his mother, Rahda, on Thursday.
When they returned them the next day they were told that the set of 23 skeleton copies opened locks to dozens of different pillarboxes – as well as the doors to the main Hampstead sorting office.
Ms Jenkins said: “Apparently they were a really important bunch of keys. If they’d got into the wrong hands it could have been really serious.”