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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
Hannah Phillips & Courtney Pochin

Schoolboys branded 'geniuses' over fake phone trick they played on their parents

When it comes to children, some will always follow the rules, while others will try and find ways to bend them.

And often the latter involves some hilarious and creative mishaps.

Two schoolboys recently tried to 'bend' their evening screen ban by making fake iPhones to hand over to their parents at curfew time.

The crafty step-brothers, Fabien Birch and Ben Stewart, both 14, weren't happy when their parents demanded they stop using their phones after 9pm each night.

So they formed a plan to try and trick their parents into thinking they'd given up their gadgets - without actually doing so.

They made fake iPhones (Kennedy News and Media)
Their parents were fooled for a little while (Kennedy News and Media)

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The teens padded out their phone cases with paper and sellotaped a photo of an iPhone on top before willingly handing them over at 8.59pm.

Their sneaky plan seemed to be working for a few hours, with 50-year-old Rebecca and 47-year-old Andrew not suspecting anything at first.

However, they later became suspicious of how eager the boys had been to give up their phones.

On closer inspection, the parents then discovered a piece of tape sticking out of one of the cases and realised they had 'tried to pull the wool over their eyes'.

The family has a lot of tech in the house, so they're trying to limit screen time (Kennedy News and Media)

Rebecca, from Sherborne, Dorset, said: "Like any parents, it's always a battle with screens, Xboxes and phones and we get fed up.

"One night we just said that's it, we wanted everyone's phones at 9pm so they could get some sleep.

"They weren't happy at all. They went off and we didn't think anything of it. We didn't hear from them for a while, they were being quiet.

"Then at one minute to nine they came downstairs with their phones and said 'here you go, out phones are on the side'. And we thought it was brilliant. We were so impressed. We thought we'd cracked it and they were actually doing what we'd asked.

"We thought they were distracting themselves with other things but they'd actually been googling iPhones, printing them off and sellotaping them on their phone cases.

"They'd even padded the cases out with paper so it looked like there were phones in them."

Rebecca, who works as a taxi driver, noticed a piece of tape sticking out of one of the cases a few hours later and hailed the boys a pair of 'geniuses'.

She continued: "They were like partners in crime trying to pull the wool over our eyes. There's never a dull moment in our house.

"When I realised, I just thought 'oh my God' and I couldn't be mad. I thought it was genius and brilliant.

"I had nothing but respect for it and I was proud that they'd actually put effort into something and used their initiative."

And this isn't the first time Fabien and Ben have been able to swerve a screen ban as they've already hacked into their parent's screen controlling software.

The couple has now resorted to a 'night time patrol' where they make sure all phones, games and TVs are turned off before the kids go to bed.

Rebecca added: "It's quite a long process with seven TVs in the house, five Xboxes and seven phones

"Good old-fashioned confiscation is the only thing that works or not as the case may be on this occasion.

"We are a new generation of parents who have to deal with technology, social media and trying to do the best for our kids.

"Even on holiday, they're glued to their phones."

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