A FATHER of three got cheap international calls by tapping into public telephone boxes, a court was told.

Burnley Magistrates heard how Mohammed Raoof, 46, who was talking to relations abroad, was rumbled after a British Telecom engineer saw him near a box where the phone was being bypassed.

Three days later the same engineer recognised him outside another phone booth and he was arrested. He had cheated BT out of almost £80 in the fraud, known as "teeing in," and which a prosecutor said he had never come across before.

Raoof, of Chapel Street, Colne, who is of previous good character, admitted two charges of obtaining telecommunications services with intent to avoid payment, in March.

He was fined £100 and was ordered to pay £79.50 compensation and £65 costs. The bench told him he may have gone to jail if he had had any previous convictions. The chairman said the defendant had deliberately defrauded a public service and they considered the offences very serious.

John Wood, prosecuting, said an engineer went to a call box on Albert Road, Colne, to check it.

Nobody was in the booth but a call was being made. The engineer picked up the receiver and there was no dialling tone. The phone was being bypassed by a circuit board wired into the back of it with crocodile clips. The engineer saw an Asian male standing nearby and then saw that person go back to the call box. The call was reconnected.

Mr Wood said no action was taken but three days later the same engineer went to a phone box on Gisburn Road, Barrowford. He recognised the defendant and police were called. They seized a cordless handset and base unit connected to the phone.

The prosecutor said Raoof admitted he had connected the equipment to the phone boxes. He said he had bought the equipment off a man in Colne.

Sajjad Karim, defending, said Raoof was thoroughly ashamed and apologised to the court. The defendant did not have a lot of money but was keen to pay any financial penalties as soon as possible. Raoof, who was a full-time carer for his wife, felt it was his duty to put right the wrong he had done. The defendant would not be behaving in the same way again.