A Hethersett woman said she was left 'fuming' after a blundering postman left a parcel in her outdoor rubbish bin which was then emptied by the local council.

Sara Brown, 30, of Jaguar Road, arrived home on Monday morning following a weekend away to find a Royal Mail calling card pushed through her door.

The Avon representative had been expecting some items for her sales kit to be delivered and had ordered some Christmas presents online.

But instead of the card explaining a parcel was waiting for her at the local delivery office, it simply said a packet had been placed in her green recycling bin.

Yet when she checked the bin, she discovered to her frustration that it had been emptied before she had returned home.

And because no other details were left on the card, she has little idea of which item has gone missing making it difficult to claim for its value or replace it in the last few days leading up to Christmas.

She said: 'I was absolutely fuming at the time. Who puts parcels in a rubbish bin?

'I drove down to the local post office and took the card into them. They said there wasn't much they could do and gave me a claim form and said I would need to provide proof of posting to get my money back. But I don't know what was binned.

'They did apologise but all they could tell me was to fill in the form.'

She added: 'Now Christmas is less than a week away and I don't know what I need to replace or what's going to arrive. I just wonder if this has happened to other people.'

Valerie Antoine, a spokesman for Royal mail, said: 'We would like to apologise to Ms Brown that the correct delivery procedures was not carried out when an attempt was made to delivery a package.

'A 'sorry, you were out' card should have been posted through the door informing them that the package had been returned to the local delivery office and listing various options available to them to retrieve it.

'Our staff are always reminded of the appropriate action to take if a customer is unavailable to accept a delivery.'