A DISABLED pensioner cut off from the world because of fallen phone lines says she is disgusted with BT for failing to fix the problem.

Jenny Tatton, 77, who lives on her own in a village south of York, says she has to rely on friends and family to make calls after storms ripped down phone lines near her house early last month.

Gales of up to 90mph tore through the region in mid-January, plunging hundreds of homes into darkness as high cables were knocked down.

Three weeks after the storms, BT engineers have still not managed to repair the damage which is affecting Mrs Tatton's phone line.

The pensioner, who uses a motorised scooter to get around, said she was "miserable" at not being able to make calls from her house.

"What if I was ill at night and couldn't get hold of my children?" she said. "I'm absolutely fed up. If it had taken a week to repair the phone I wouldn't have worried, but it's taken more than three weeks. I think it's rather disgusting. And I still don't know when it's going to be fixed."

Although BT has diverted Mrs Tatton's calls to her mobile telephone, she says it gets no reception where she lives.

Her daughter, Karen Taylor, who lives in the same village, said: "Her phone line has been knocked down, she is 77, and we have had no satisfaction from BT. She has never missed paying her bills and this needed to be fixed more quickly."

BT spokesman Paul Dorrell said engineers were working to fix the phone lines which supply Mrs Tatton, but the problem was "rather complicated" and it was not yet possible to say when her land line would be restored.

The BT line which served her house was shared by electricity supplies, he explained.

This was forcing engineers to think of a different way of supplying her house, because of new EC legislation governing how far phone lines are from electricity supplies and the ground.

Updated: 10:16 Tuesday, February 01, 2005