Posh's Thief Sentenced

By Stephen M. Silverman

06/03/1998 at 12:00 AM EDT

A garbage collector was convicted in London on Tuesday of handling property stolen from "Posh Spice" Victoria Beckham, including a lock of her baby Brooklyn's hair and love letters from Posh's husband, soccer star David Beckham, reports the Associated Press. Mark Oliver, 20, was found guilty of two counts of handling the goods, which were apparently taken from some stolen suitcases belonging to Posh, 26. The bags in question were apparently lifted from London's Heathrow airport after she had arrived from Miami last April. In court, Posh testified that Oliver called a friend of hers to say that he had the items in his possession and wished to return them. He also provided his cell phone number, she said. When she phoned to thank him, "I asked him how he had come into contact with it and he said he owned a dumper truck of some sort, and he had found a dustbin bag in the back which he had looked into and found the lyric book and new CD." The prosecutor in the case said that Oliver failed to send back the entire contents of the suitcases and that police found the items in his sister's closet.