Live electric??

[hopeishere]

This is a cable that was buried in our flowerbed until I dug it up. I never managed to get I all back under the earth - bits were always visible. It's a shallow / crappy flower bed. It was put there in case we wanted to add electric to the garden eg lights.

Ideally I'd like to cut it as short as I can and just have a stump that was easier to bury. It's really unpliable. We are never going to use it, but do you think it's live?? How could I find out? If I turned all power of via the trip switches would it be safe to cut?

I've checked the fuse box and nothing is labelled "outside".

Do you know where the other end is

Nope it's buried deep in the flower bed!

This shows how long it is and it's so stiff I can't really bend it.

It's probably non-pliable because it's SWA - steel wire armoured. Instead of just a plastic sheath over the cables there is first a wrap of steel wires, then the outer sheath. This stops you cutting into it with a garden spade, or rats gnawing through it.

So you had it put in a long time ago, but forgot what you told the electrician to do?

If the end is just cut across then it's fairly unlikely to be live, but if you don't know how to test or have the right equipment then it needs an electrician. He will also know how to find the other end and probably ensure it is fully disconnected rather than just switched off.

It was put in when the house was built. We didn't ask them to do it I only found it when I was digging the bed out years later.