Hearing aid fools phone police

From: icWales, UK - Dec 9, 2003

Duncan Higgitt, The Western Mail

A WOMAN driver stopped by police who suspected she was using a mobile phone told them, "I was just adjusting my hearing aid."

The 31-year-old profoundly deaf woman had her hand on her earpiece to turn down the hearing aid when a traffic patrol ordered her to pull over. She was left "shaken and upset" over being stopped as part of the new clampdown on illegal use of mobile phones.

Her employer, Robin Ashburner, said, "As she drove, she was adjusting her hearing aid when she was stopped by police. She is clearly deaf and had the hearing aid to back up her story. But she was not believed - until her mobile phone was found inside a handbag in the boot of her car. It was then agreed she could not have used it."

The woman, who was born deaf, uses her mobile phone for text messages. She was stopped while driving to work at a flag-making company at Pontardawe, near Swansea.

She was not given any advice by the police on whether she could adjust her hearing aid in the car.

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