Telewest has launched an investigation after two of its street cabinets in North London were vandalised cutting off phone lines to 700 customers.

The incident took place Monday night/Tuesday morning when the covers were ripped off and the wires stripped out.

The cableco has apologised to customers for the problem and said it is looking into the incident.

However, one customer told The Register that when he contacted Telewest about the problem he was told that it was the result of employee sabotage.

Said the customer, who asked to remain anonymous: "When I finally got through to the faults department I was told that a disgruntled Telewest employee had slashed the phone connections."

A spokesman for the cable said he had no record of this but promised to investigate further.

"There is currently no evidence that a disgruntled employee was responsible and we apologise for the misleading information," he said. ®