POLICE have received a complaint of fraud relating to the local Herald group of newspapers, it has been confirmed.

It is understood that an allegation has been made that a customer's payment details had been fraudulently used.

Dyfed-Powys Police Officers confirmed this week they had received a complaint of fraud from “the Haverfordwest area" and added: “We are in the early stages of evaluating the information and conducting enquiries.”

When the Western Telegraph contacted the Pembrokeshire Herald office on Monday, a spokesman for the parent company MegaGroup denied any knowledge of any allegation, stating: "We are not aware of any police investigation or allegation of fraud against our company or any of our employees.

"We have not been contacted by the police regarding any investigation."

However, within hours Pembrokeshire Herald editor Tom Sinclair had posted a lengthy apology online, saying sorry for what was claimed to be a ‘payments mix-up’.

The post claimed that “an over-enthusiastic trainee sales assistant" had mixed up her customer’s accounts and charged the wrong customer for the wrong adverts over several weeks.

It went on to say the staff member involved has been suspended.

Mr Sinclair said: “Neither The Herald nor any staff member has been contacted by the police about any allegations.

“For the sake of clarity, The Herald wishes to make it clear that it is continuing its internal investigation into this error found in a single customer’s advertising account and a probationary member of staff has been suspended while we investigate the matter further.”

A spokesperson for parent company MegaGroup, which is based in Milford Haven, said: “There was an incident where a business customer, who had previously placed advertising, said that his bank card had been charged for the wrong adverts by The Carmarthenshire Herald. We refunded that customer immediately.

“In line with our strict company procedures, the staff member was suspended from The Carmarthenshire Herald pending an internal investigation.

Mr Sinclair said: “We process a huge number of transactions every week and it is very rare that we have a query and we deeply regret any concern and difficulty this error may have caused our customer.”