A north Devon couple whose mobile phone was stolen during a holiday in Africa are to have their £8,000 bill waived, the mobile phone company has said.

Zyg and Rosemary Gregorek received the 49-page bill for £8,115.29 from T-Mobile after their phone went missing during a one night stop-over in Johannesburg in November.

The couple from Halwill did not realise the phone had been stolen until the day before their return to the UK. They reported it missing as soon as they got back on December 5.

The bill showed their phone had been in almost constant use from the time it was stolen, with calls made to countries such as Pakistan, Qatar, Senegal and Ethiopia.

Rosemary Gregorek, 53, said she was delighted the bill was to be waived.

'We are just elated. I have had to live with this for months now. I haven't slept and my work has suffered. I feel now as though a weight has been lifted. I am going to drink some champagne later and then get a good night's sleep,'' she said.

Mrs Gregorek, whose monthly phone bill is usually around £15, said she could not understand why T-Mobile had not spotted the upsurge in calls and cut off the line earlier.

'At the moment they are not liable for a single penny until you report the phone missing and that's wrong. Until they sort out contracts which protect us as consumers I think people should get pay-as-you-go phones,' she said.

Patrick Barrow, head of external communications at T-Mobile, today said the company had agreed to treat the Gregoreks as an 'exceptional case' by waiving their phone bill.

'This is not a change in policy. It is just that there are quite particular circumstances surrounding this incident which suggest the right thing to do would be to waive the bill,' he said.

Mr Barrow said T-Mobile customers could ask the company to impose a monthly cut-off limit if they wanted to cap their spending.

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