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The phone was owned by a UK businessman whose wife had started the download of four episodes of the popular comedy show Friends on the handset while still in the UK.

The owner then flew to Germany on a business trip, where the downloads continued on an expensive roaming tariff.

According to the terms of the contract, the downloads would have been free had they taken place in the UK.

The case highlights the high

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cost of data roaming charges on many UK contracts, a situation that the EU is keen to put an end to.

"Sending a text message or downloading data in another country should not be substantially more expensive than at home," said Viviane Reding, the European Union commissioner for information, society and media recently. "Higher retail charges abroad must be justified or they will have to disappear."

In recent months there has been several similar cases of excessive phone bills relating to mobile broadband use, showing that there is still confusion among consumers as to what is covered by "unlimited packages".

In January another Vodafone customer received a bill for £27,000, after having downloaded "20 or 30" television shows over his mobile data package, believing that it included unlimited data.

Vodafone was unavailable for comment at the time of publication.