FURIOUS Jim Butterworth gave a whole new meaning to the words action replay . . . when he was forced to take back new video recorders FOUR times.

A catalogue of faults gave the retired taxi driver a real headache when his new recorder - bought from Bolton's Norweb store - went on the blink.

Norweb bent over backwards to help instead of repairing Mr Butterworth's faulty recorder, they gave him another new one . . . and another and then another!

Now Mr Butterworth, of Lichfield Road, Radcliffe, has decided to abandon his new video recorder altogether in favour of his 11-year old faithful model.

Mr Butterworth, 58, claims the store kept giving him ex-display goods.

"I can't believe my ill luck. I bought the new video for £250 and when I took it back for the first time there was a queue of other people also taking back faulty videos.

"I had decided to buy the new recorder to replace my old one. The store kept exchanging it, but every video I took home had a different fault."

He claims they included wiring problems, faulty mechanisms chewing up tapes and one video which could not be tuned in.

"There is no way that I am going to get a fifth one. I'm going to stick to my old one for the time being," said Mr Butterworth.

Mr Butterworth also claims to have bought a television from the Market Place shop in summer which broke down and had to be repaired by Norweb engineers.

Philip Elliott, sales controller for Norweb, said: "Mr Butterworth has been extremely unlucky and to be fair NORWEB have also messed up.

"We have tried to help him and have gone out of our way to upgrade and give him a better video. We will be happy to resolve the matter in any way that suits Mr Butterworth and we apologise for his inconvenience."

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.