Two fraudsters who posed as DPD workers for a delivery scam worth more than £8,000 have each been jailed for more than a year.

Adekoya Adefowora, 38, and Deborah Oyeniyi, 23, were sentenced for seven counts of fraud by false representation at Ipswich Crown Court on Thursday, having admitted the offences at an earlier hearing on March 6.

Posing as parcel service workers, complete with DPD uniform and order books, the pair visited homes in Colchester, Felixstowe and Ipswich on May 6, 12 and 13 last year.

Prosecutor Steven Attridge said they claimed to be retrieving wrongly delivered electronics, which had all been purchased on finance from electrical retailer AO via an untraceable IP address.

"Persons at the addresses were totally unaware the parcels were coming," added Mr Attridge.

"They would take them, and thereafter, in a matter of 20-30 minutes, the defendants would appear, dressed as DPD workers, indicating that the goods had been supplied in error or delivered to the wrong address."

Adefowora and Oyeniyi – both actually employed as carers – managed to convince five householders to hand over four laptops and a red iPhone.

Mr Attridge said £7,299 worth of the total £8,313 in goods had been recovered, while £17,550 had been applied for in credit.

The pair were pulled over in a car near Brentwood on May 13 and found with five phones, including a red iPhone, two Microsoft Surface laptops, DPD uniforms, ripped up labels and paperwork displaying the details of four targeted households.

Adefowora's wallet was also found to contain a DPD identity card, while a further search of his address turned up another DPD uniform and DPD receipt.

It was later established he had worked for DPD until being sacked in June 2014 amid allegations of fraudulent activity around the delivery of 49 Tesco mobile phones on his route.

Vanessa Mistry, for Adefowora, said he claimed to have been instructed to collect the goods by a third party, but that he accepted it seemed "strange and slightly dishonest".

She said the father-of-five acted as primary carer for his unwell wife and hoped to attend the funeral of his father in Lagos, Nigeria, next month.

David Owusu-Yianoma, for Oyeniyi, said she was a woman of previously good character, who had been initially unclear about what was going on, but later became aware of the criminality behind the arrangement.

Judge Rupert Overbury said there was no evidence to suggest anyone else was involved.

He said the fact that Adefowora and Oyeniyi had access to delivery information inferred it was they who ordered the items.

Adefowora, of Colyers Lane, Erith, was jailed for 15 months, while Oyeniyi, of Russell Road, London, was jailed for 12 months.