AN elderly couple from Aldbourne who ended their evening out stuck in a Swindon lift say they were 'dumbfounded' when they rang the emergency number only to find they were speaking to someone in Belfast.

"Not only did he have no idea where the car park was, he wasn't even sure where Swindon was," said 73-year-old Anne Barnes who had been to the Wyvern Theatre with her husband Donald, 75, for the Christmas Cracker concert.

The couple got into the lift of the town’s new Whalebridge car park on Sunday night with three other couples at around 10.30pm and pressed the button for the first level of the car park.

"Nothing happened," said Mrs Barnes. We tried a few more times and realised we were stuck so we rang the emergency number listed on the inside of the lift."

Mrs Barnes says the call to the emergency operator was cut off several times and they were struggling to communicate with the operator on the other end of the line.

"Eventually we asked him where he was and found out he was in Northern Ireland and when we asked him if he could contact someone in Swindon for us he said he didn't have any contact for anyone in Swindon," Mrs Barnes added.

Then to make matters worse the phone went dead again and piped music started playing to the stricken group.

"Someone decided to call 999 and we were rescued by the fire service who jammed the door open and got us out one by one," said Mrs Barnes, who is furious about the lift company's response.

"If we hadn't been able to get through on a mobile phone and the fire service hadn't come out we would likely have been stuck in there all night. It was very frightening and very, very hot in there.

“I was absolutely dumb-founded when the emergency operator said he was in Belfast. What use is that in an emergency?" said Mrs Barnes.

"I think people should be aware of this should it happen again."

Mrs Barnes said she thought they had been trapped for around 45 minutes.

But a spokesman for Wiltshire Fire and Rescue said: "We were called at 11.05pm to an address in Islington Street where eight people had become stuck in a lift."

"They had been in there for about quarter of an hour at the point that we were called and the occupants were released within ten minutes from the time of call, so around 25 minutes in total."

A spokesman for Swindon Borough Council said it was currently 'investigating' the incident.