Leigh Holmwood reports that the BBC got its wrist-slapped over a somewhat inexplicable mistake in which a real person’s mobile telephone number was displayed during a soap opera, leading to the real person getting thousands of unwanted text messages and calls:
Character Ricky Butcher was seen receiving texts from wayward missus Sam Mitchell as he sat eating chips in an episode of the BBC1 soap in September.
But the number on his mobile screen – which was shown for four seconds – actually belonged to beautician Lisa Edwards, 38, of Alvechurch, Worcs.
She was immediately besieged by calls, texts and voicemails from strangers.
Several asked: “Is that Sam from EastEnders?”
Some asked for a date and others were seeking sex.
In two hours Lisa had more than 500 calls and hundreds of texts – and received another huge batch after the BBC1 episode was re-run on BBC3.
In all, she received nearly 3,000 text messages.
Read more in The Sun.