A RAIDER broke into a dry cleaners and spent the day running up a £1,600 phone bill on sex line numbers and international calls.

The owners were away at the time and were astonished when they got back to a call from British Telecom alerting them to what had happened. The intruder got into the shop in Church Walk, Burgess Hill, and spent hours phoning 0891 sex line numbers and making overseas calls. Owner George Parthemiou said: "We were away for a couple of days and the first we knew of it was when we walked in to open the shop and got a call from British Telecom. "We were absolutely amazed. "Apparently, the person started just after midnight and had only a half-hour break for the rest of the day. "When we heard some of the calls were to sex lines we were not happy. "There is no way we would make any phone calls to numbers like that. "It is a very puzzling situation and we just hope that the police can manage to find out what happened." Police are now checking an itemised copy of the bill. PC Jon Lelliott said: "We take this sort of behaviour very seriously. "It is an abuse of the telephone system and we would appeal to anyone with information to contact us." ABT spokesman said: "We have to judge each individual case on its merits when it comes to any payment of such a bill. "We are looking into the situation."

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