Additional reporting by Elli Hodgson

A great-grandmother is angry with a phone company who left her disconnected for six weeks and delayed her hearing of her daughter's death.

Sheila Plank, of Martin Square, Larkfield, first reported problems with her landline to BT in January.

In the six weeks since, Mrs Plank has missed calls from her surgery and was unable to keep in touch with friends. But there was worse to come.

Last Thursday, her grandson desperately tried to reach her to tell her about the death of her eldest daughter Carol.

He had found her dead in her armchair at her home in Sheerness.

The 88-year-old said: “Carol’s son tried to reach me but he didn't know about the problem with my phone.

“Every time they called it went to answerphone and they kept thinking 'you’ve been on the phone a long time'.

“As her mother I shouldn’t have been the last to know.”

Eventually, the news reached her son John, in Cliffords Way, Maidstone, who took time off work as a carpenter to tell his mum in person.

John said: “It’s disgusting. I knew my mum was missing important things, but I couldn’t envisage what happened with my sister.

“No one was able to get hold of her. I’m somewhat thankful I could be there when she got the news but she shouldn’t be missing out on that.

“What if I wasn’t about to tell her?”

Inquiries into Carol's death is ongoing and the family are waiting for a report from the coroner.

The former care home manager finally had an engineer come out on Monday and has been reconnected after changing her provider to Sky.

BT has told KentOnline the company is apologising to the customer for the loss of service.

Sheila, who has five children, 21 grandchildren, 39 great-grandchildren, and five great-great grandchildren, first reported the problem on January 6.

She said: “They were going to put it back on on that Monday but nothing happened

“They then said January 18 which was my birthday so I thought, great - it'll be a birthday present.

"My son, John, and daughter, Sharon, complained to BT every day since but nothing was done.

"I went to my GP surgery recently to find out about tests and they said they'd tried calling but it kept going to answerphone.

“And then when my daughter died they couldn’t get hold of me because I had no phone. It’s not right.”

Mrs Plank's only other way of communicating is through her tablet which has very poor signal.

John explained: “Every time I go round to see her I leave my phone by the window as it’s the only place I get service.

“She always uses her landline. It’s a lifeline to her. She has friends in Cyprus who haven’t been able to talk to her.

“My sister Sharon would phone her five, six times a day.

“In moments like these, it is important she can reach us and speak to us about but she hasn’t been able to contact anyone."

The 65-year-old has been disappointed with the response from the phone company. He said: “I don’t understand the problem and I feel like we are being fobbed off.

“They say the address for my mum doesn’t match the postcode and that they have sorted it and connected it to her flat but it’s next door.

“They told me someone requested the change as she was moving soon but that isn’t right.

“There isn’t any reason why they would need to change it anyway, my mum pays her direct debit diligently, she isn’t senile, and no one would’ve asked for it to be moved.”

An engineer from Openreach was sent around on Monday (February 12) to fix the issue, after KentOnline had been in touch for a comment.

Sheila said: “The engineer who came around was lovely and didn’t understand why it wasn’t put back on sooner."

After fixing the issue and hearing about the death of her daughter, the engineer gave Sheila his telephone number and said to call if there was another problem.