A BT employee made phone calls to her grandmother in Pakistan and charged them to other people's phone credit cards.

Blackburn magistrates heard that Parveen Hassan ran up a bill totalling £1,908 as she cheated the system using a staff phone at work and the phone at her home in Accrington.

And jailing the 21-year-old, first time offender for 60 days, the chairman of the bench said the offence was a serious breach of trust. "A clear message needs to go to other employees of BT and the public in general that fraud and theft on this scale is totally unacceptable," he said.

Hassan, of Richmond Hill Street, Accrington, pleaded guilty to obtaining telecommunications services with intent to avoid payment.

Clare Fanning, prosecuting, said the offence was discovered by a BT fraud investigator who found 13 charge card numbers were being used fraudulently.

"The card works like a credit card and if you know the pin number you can make calls and they will be charged to that account," said Miss Fanning.

"People were receiving bills that were not for their own calls."

She said the investigations revealed that calls had been made from the staff phones at the BT exchange in Blackburn and the investigator traced their destination.

Calls were also made to the same destination from the defendant's home phone.

"None of the card holders have been charged for these calls and BT has assumed the losses," said Miss Fanning. Michael Blacklidge, defending, said Hassan was the youngest of five children brought up single-handedly by their mother.

She had worked since leaving Hollins High School, always improving herself.

Mr Blacklidge said Hassan had been told of a method of obtaining free telephone calls by someone at work and had called home to Pakistan to see how her grandmother was.

"Unfortunately, it did not stop there and she used the facility from her own phone when other members of the family would also speak to gran," said Mr Blacklidge.

"She did not appreciate that the technology that exists within BT tracks and records all calls and making the calls from her home phone made the investigator's task easy.

"There was a degree of sophistication but a large degree of naivety," added Mr Blacklidge.

Hassan, who was shaking visibly throughout the hearing, wept as she was led away by Group 4 court custody officers.

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