Coma man's phone line cut off

A telephone company refused to reconnect a Shropshire pensioner's phone line because the account is in his wife's name - despite the fact she is in a coma.

John Pugh, 65, from Alberbury, near Shrewsbury, is desperately awaiting news of his wife Eileen, who is in intensive care at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital, but a farmer cut through his phone line on Wednesday night.

The couple's son Mark Pugh said when he spoke to the phone company Toucan, they said they needed to speak to Mrs Pugh because she is the account holder under "data protection" - despite being told she may never wake up. But the line has now been repaired and Mr Pugh is back on the phone network.

He said: "My mum is in intensive care. She might not wake up. We do not know.

"My father had a stroke about seven years ago and his speech is very slurred and he has lost mobility.

"The phone is everything to him, especially as he is waiting to hear anything about mum.

"He cannot use a mobile phone because his eyesight is not good enough to see the small buttons.

"We rang the company on Wednesday night and the woman was very unhelpful and said we were not the account holders and they couldn't do anything.

"I rang back the next day. I explained everything, but they said due to data protection I could not report there was a fault because I am not the account holder.

"It's absolutely pathetic. Councillor David Roberts rang them and they said the same thing to him.

"If the farmer had not reported it, we wouldn't have been able to do anything because of Toucan.

"We are definitely going to move from this company but I bet they will say leaving has to be done by mum. Something like this should be common sense."

A spokesman from Toucan said: "I can only apologise.

"If anyone did say the line could not be repaired because the account holder was in a coma, then that's not our policy.

"The policy is that the fault should be immediately repaired - and that's what happened. A BT engineer came out on behalf of the company.

"We will talk to the person who took the phone call and make sure it does not happen again."

By Rebecca Lawrence