The Dispatch Online reported this week that a homeless man was spotted delivering post for the day in one of East London’s leafy suburbs – claiming he was standing in for the regular postman who allegedly paid him to do his job.

The unofficial deliveries were stopped when a Bunkers Hill resident asked him why he was delivering mail. The man replied that he had been “sub-contracted” by a South African Post Office postman who, he said, had paid him R10 to do the job.

Lionel Scott yesterday explained how he caught the man with two bags full of post, meant for residents of Bunkers Hill, on Tuesday afternoon. Scott confiscated the bags.

He said his wife called him after seeing the man at Schekter Place – “sitting outside looking through the post”.

Scott continued: “I drove from home and found the guy on his way into a nearby bush. I asked him if he worked for the Post Office and he said no; he then told me the postman gave him R10 to deliver the post.

“When I asked him why he was going into the bush, he said he was going to deliver it later … I took the two bags from him; he didn’t resist.”

Scott pointed out the unidentified man to the Daily Dispatch team at Eastern Beach.

Attempts to talk to the topless young man failed. He refused to speak to the Dispatch and walked away.

But postman Andile Ndzwana, who delivers mail in the Bunkers Hill area, denied paying the man R10 to do the job – instead, he claimed that the bags had been stolen from him.