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Searching for a mobile phone signal can be a frustrating necessity for most people, but for this woman it all became a bit too much.

Sat on a camping chair, Diane Cartwright padlocked herself to the door of a mobile phone shop for several hours in a desperate attempt to get her phone working.

The business owner placed a chain around the door of her local EE store on Wednesday in an attempt to convince bosses to give her a working phone or release her from her contract.

Waving a placard saying: “EE: Please release me, let me go” and “peaceful protest” Ms Cartwright sat in the shop doorway from 2pm to 5.30pm.

Police were called to the scene but took no action over what was deemed a “civil matter”.

Mrs Cartwright, who is in her 50s, relies on her mobile phone to run her dog-grooming company called Porthma ‘DOG’ in Porthmadog with husband Edmund.

She claims her phone only receives an intermittent signal, meaning her company was potentially losing hundreds of pounds from customers in missed calls, the Daily Post reported

Mrs Cartwright said: “We have lost £700 - £1,000 worth of business. We don’t want the stress. People were trying to call us and it was saying out of service.”

She says that, despite numerous calls to EE, the problem has not been resolved.

(Image: Hywel Trewyn)

She wanted to cancel her contract with EE and had demanded they give her a PAC code so she could keep the number but move it to another mobile company.

Mrs Cartwright from Mynytho, Gwynedd, said: “I can’t afford another week without my phone working. All I need is the PAC code. They don’t want you to leave.”

This is the second time the Cartwrights have had problems with mobile phone coverage.

Two years ago, their home was hit by a lightning strike which knocked out their mobile phone, broadband and landline supplied by EE.

Mr Cartwright claims he spent 45 hours on the phone trying to sort their problems out. Then, it took six months and the intervention of their MP to get their problems and refund sorted.

At the shop in the Deiniol Shopping Centre at Bangor Mrs Cartwright said: “We don’t owe them any money. I went to the shop at Bangor and I was assured that they would sort it out. I am at the end of my tether and sick to death of it.”

The Daily Post said they had approached EE for comment.