A POWER company has denied Prime Minister David Cameron received “preferential treatment”when engineers were called out to his home during the Christmas storms.

This week it was reported that two Scottish and Southern Energy Power Distribution engineers, who were carrying out repairs in the village of Kirtlington, were diverted 17 miles to Mr Cameron’s constituency home in Dean, near Chipping Norton.

The pair, part of an emergency repair team, allegedly told BBC Radio 4 it was just a tripped fuse and nothing to do with the storms, which left thousands without power.

A spokesman for Southern Electric Power Distribution said: “The Prime Minister did not receive any preferential treatment when we attended his property and this visit was not to the detriment of any other customers who may have been without power.

"Safety is our number one priority, and when a customer calls our 24 hour emergency service centre, our specially trained staff will ask a series of questions to quickly establish if the fault lies with our network or with the customer’s internal wiring.

“If, after going through these questions, there is any doubt as to the nature of the fault, we prefer to send our engineers to the property as it is always better to be safe than sorry.”

A spokesman for Mr Cameron, pictured, said: “The power went down because there was a leaky roof. There was water around the fusebox. The engineers came to fix it, which they did.”