THE saga of the East Prawle telephone box should be added to the Agatha Christie series or to the Sherlock Holmes mysteries.

Two hundred inhabitants of a tiny village perched high on the cliffs at the most southern point of Devon recently unearthed a strange and extraordinary piece of history which naturally they were quite proud of.

But it was the clerk of the council, the Sherlock Holmes and hero of this story, who was alerted in the nick of time.

He sped down wintry windy Devon lanes on the only vehicle he can find on one bitter October evening.

His trusty tractor arrived in the nick of time at the scene of the crime as dusk fell to witness an historical travesty of justice — the removal of a BT red telephone box by the Morrison Utility Services for British Telecom.

An unpleasant crime to witness indeed.

Although East Prawle is in Agatha Christie territory, Poirot might have had difficulty in discovering who the culprit was.

The saga started some five years ago when BT informed the Chivelstone Parish Council its telephone box at Higher Park was secure, saying: "We have cancelled the removal of this payphone from our rationalisation programme.

"However if we do review this we will of course fully consult with the councils in the area."

Four years later in July last year, an official working undercover for the South Hams District Council issued an alert: "Public telephone boxes are at risk in your area and the one at Higher Park, East Prawle, is on BT's courtesy list."

A coded phrase for 'on the target list and soon to be removed'.

The council mole told the parish council to be on its guard because new OFCOM rules superseding the earlier BT commitment meant no consultation was now required.

Once alerted, the parish council immediately passed a resolution on September 4, applying to BT to 'adopt the kiosk' — a scheme whereby councils can apply to adopt their kiosks for £1 and so prevent their removal.

Unfortunately the parish council, quick though it was, was not fast enough to halt the battalions of BT bureaucrats who swung into action, dispatching contractors to snatch away the box from the good burghers of East Prawle.

Step forward Detective Steen. Nothing does he like more than to take on the faceless hand of bureaucracy. He usually though, battles with the public sector — it is they who often bear the brunt of his fervour.

But in this case it was the hapless Ian Livingstone, chief executive of BT, who became the principal target.

Mr Steen's first epistle arrived like a thunderbolt on Mr Livingstone's desk and a response followed with a tacit admission that BT's records were possibly at fault, but then with 61,000 boxes over the country, that wasn't too surprising.

There were the usual regrets and sadness the kiosk had been removed, said it was an isolated error, admitted it would come as a disappointment to the East Prawle community and parish council, but said: "We have no plans to reinstate the kiosk." That was November 13, 2008.

Then followed an argy-bargy between the sleuth and dozens of BT officials with emails bouncing backwards and forwards.

Mr Steen battled on with suitable ammunition provided by the parish clerk.

The mystery as to how this mistake happened deepened over the weeks and at one point the parish council offered to drive a lorry to the BT depot in Leicester to collect the abandoned box. This was politely refused.

Finally BT officials came clean. They confessed they had collectively suffered from amnesia because, in fact, the box they had removed, far from being a common or garden KX300 design, was none other than an historic K6.

Red faces all round but no red box!

BT conceded they would in fact return a K6 box at their own expense, but it would need to be in a different location in East Prawle as the old site would no longer be suitable.

Case closed. Job done. Or so I thought. I was anticipating the satisfaction of being present at the historic event — the return of the K6 box.

But late last Thursday or Friday (nobody knows quite when) an unmarked lorry drove to East Prawle carrying a K6 telephone box.

It proceeded with dipped headlights to the very spot the original K6 box had previously occupied.

Out jumped BT officials disguised as workmen who made a swift job of concreting over the original spot and then stealthily placed the historic K6 telephone box on the setting concrete.

They then skedaddled. Not a word to anyone. Not a hint to the parish council or a bleat to myself.

The wheels of bureaucracy move strangely. However, as Detective Steen would say, 'all's well that ends well'.

The only snag here was the box was reinstalled without one crucial element — a telephone! But there is a silver lining to this tale.

BT management have confided in me that for a modest annual fee of £500 BT will connect an outside line to the phone box.