A YUNGABURRA mother says she was horrified to find sexist, racist and offensive text messages on a temporary mobile phone handed out by a Telstra dealer.

The phone, supplied by Adrian Kipps Electrical at Atherton, had three "joke" texts in the phone’s inbox, she said.

One made light of a man breaking into his ex-girlfriends home and performing a lewd act, another denigrated Chinese and Aboriginal people and the third was about a sex toy, unhappy customer Nadia Rust told The Cairns Post.

But store owner Adrian Kipps was quick to point out that the "loaner" phone contained Ms Rust’s own SIM card, which could just have been the source of the messages, transferring them from her old phone. "We give out phones as a courtesy," he said.

"They have not brought the phone back, so how can I help them? We take the upmost care to make sure all our phones have been checked."

Ms Rust told The Cairns Post yesterday children had access to her phone and the content of the messages was of grave concern.

"I was extremely offended," she said.

"To start with my partner is an Aboriginal and to think someone could make a joke about breaking into a woman’s house, well, there is nothing funny about that.

"In fact, it’s scary to think someone did think it was funny."

Ms Rust said the family had not taken the matter as a joke and had referred it to police but were shocked to discover they could provide no assistance because the messages had not been directed at her.

"I just don’t have those sorts of things on my phone," she said.

Mr Kipps said yesterday all phones were checked before being issued to customers and because the customer had not taken the phone in to be inspected it was impossible to comment on the messages.

He also said Ms Rust was not the owner of the phone contract.

The text messages found on the phone in question dated back to April.

The incident comes after a Cairns student found pornographic images of a female employee from a Cairns Dick Smith Electronics store.

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