A MAN accused of stealing more than £26,000 from the post office where he worked has claimed he took the rap to save the family-run business.

Riyaz Patel, 26, of Inkerman Street, Blackburn, insisted that he only made an admission to the crime because it was thought his father would lose his financial outlay on the premises near Preston.

He told a Preston Crown Court jury: "Looking back, it was stupid to take responsibility when I have not done the thing." Patel denies 29 counts of theft over a six-month period in 2000 while his brother Shafiq was sub-postmaster of Cop Lane Post Office, Penwortham. The business has since been sold.

The prosecution allege there was a consistent and deliberate pattern of abusing the system with inflated figures recorded on the numbers of benefits or allowance vouchers received there.

A shortfall was identified through a random check made by a DSS department.

The defendant is said to have admitted the thefts during a second interview with investigating officers, telling them he had spent £1,000 a week at a bingo hall and also visited the casino.

Patel told the court in evidence that he earned £120 a week at the Post Office. He said he would cash pension and allowance books and also deal with motor vehicle licences.

Sometimes he would have to leave early if it was a match day, as he was a head steward at Blackburn Rovers. When there were Saturday home games, he would not go into the post office.

In the last few weeks his brother Shafiq and sister would balance things and before that the brother did it, but not all the time. As far as the defendant himself was concerned, there was no problem with the system.

Patel said that after he, his brother and sister were interviewed in November 2000, Shafiq said he had been suspended and that none of the staff could work there any longer.

A family meeting followed where the father asked it any of them had something to do with it.

The defendant said his father and sister both indicated they were willing to take responsibility, but he did not want them to as it could not have been them.

(Proceeding)