BT slammed by Wiltshire mother over 'scary' Openreach outage

Rosanna Watson was one of nearly 100 villagers affected by an Openreach outage in Little Cheverell, which began on July 20 when a tree brought down a telephone wire and lasted for around three weeks.

Because of this the 34-year-old, who was pregnant with her first child at the time, had no access to the internet or a landline when she suddenly went into labour.

Poor mobile signal in the village meant she was unable to contact the hospital when she began “feeling funny”.

It was only when her husband arrived home, after not being able to contact her and becoming worried, that they were able to reach a medical professional who advised them to call 999.

By this time Mrs Watson was in advanced labour and gave birth to her daughter on the kitchen floor, 15 minutes after paramedics arrived.

Rosanna Watson's daughter after being born on the kitchen floor (Image: Rosanna Watson)

“I couldn’t get through within enough time and it was really scary”, she said.

“It was my first birth so I didn’t know what was going on or if I was in labour and I wasn’t able to reach somebody to give me the right advice, it could have been dangerous and was really scary.

“It all ended up fine and the emergency services were brilliant.”

Mrs Watson told this paper that she has since sought compensation for the loss of services during the outage.

But her broadband provider, BT, reportedly informed her she was ineligible for compensation as she did not report the incident herself.

She added: “I can appreciate why BT services were out but they’re telling me I needed to report the issue when the entire village had an outage.

“I’m still paying a BT bill for that period and I’m now on maternity leave so funds are tight, it’s ridiculous because they knew there was an issue and they knew it affected me.”

Rosanna Watson and her BT landline phone (Image: Rosanna Watson)

BT was contacted for comment but did not respond.

Openreach, which has been independent from BT for several years, told this paper that compensation is paid through their providers, including BT, rather than by them.

At the time of the outage, they said that the complex repair work was delayed because they were awaiting permission for traffic management measures.

A spokesperson said: “We know how frustrating it is to be without phone or broadband and we’re really sorry we haven’t been able to get things repaired more quickly.”