Frustration over lack of phone service drove Warwick businessman Richard Powell to hijack a Bermuda Telephone Company truck yesterday.

Mr. Powell held up the truck with his forklift and ordered BTC workers to connected his phone lines or face leaving his establishment minus the company vehicle.

"The frustration had just built up in me,'' Mr. Powell said yesterday, "This has been a three month saga -- it started back in December. The phones just seem to work when they feel like it.'' Mr. Powell, who owns and operates Lines Food and Liquor Mart on Ord Road in Warwick, explained that the intermittent phone service put his bottom line at risk as he was unable to run credit checks on customers.

"I have a Centrex system here,'' he said, "That is the system used for the debit and credit cards to get credit authorisation. When the line goes down there's no way to guarantee it because you cannot do the check.'' Mr. Powell also runs cheques through a credit agency and said the loss of phone service meant he was forced to accept cheques that might bounce.

"Then I will have to take that loss because the telephone company certainly would not would they?'' Mr. Powell said he was left without phone service for five weekends in a row.

"That just results in a lot of frustration. When the phone goes down at 4 p.m. on Friday afternoon and you just know that there's no chance of anyone coming to look at repairing it until Monday.'' BTC corporate communications manager Ona Fletcher said the company recognised there was "an interruption in service'' but explained that it came as a result of upgrading to the current cabling system.

She said that problems with Mr. Powell's service were as a result of testing the new system and said: "BTC would like to apologise to Mr. Powell for any inconveniences and will endeavour to solve any problems Mr. Powell may have with the lines.'' By yesterday evening Mr. Powell's temper had cooled but he explained that much of the treatment he had received from the company had been sadly lacking.

"Three workmen came to fix the line this (yesterday) morning and left at 11 a.m. When they left the phone lines were dead and this made me angry,'' he said.

Mr. Powell said that when a workman returned he made the complaint to him.

"But he just walked out, so I went out and hijacked his truck, taking my forklift to lift up the back of the vehicle and I told him he was going nowhere until my phones were working.

"There was a lot of hollering and screaming and it almost got physical and I said to him `you see how frustrated you feel? That's the same way I feel',''.

Eventually a senior executive of BTC had to personally visit Mr. Powell on and apologise first hand for the company's bad service.

"He (the senior executive) said he did not know about my problem but at least 20-30 people at BTC did. I guess it just never got to his level but today it did.''