Cops slam hoax 999 callers who put lives at risk

3:40pm Wednesday 31st December 2008

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POLICE chiefs have hit out at the number of hoax 999 calls made over the Christmas period.

Greater Manchester Police (GMP) received almost 5,000 ‘emergency’ calls, but a large number were from people who did not need the police.

Of all the emergency calls made between noon on Christmas Eve and mid-day on Boxing Day, 72 were hoax calls.

One caller dialled 999 to report Santa was breaking into a house with Rudolf while another called the emergency number to ask for chemist opening times.

Now, senior officers are appealing to the public to only call 999 in an emergency where there is a threat to life or a crime in progress.

GMP’s head of call handling, Superintendent Karan Lee, said: “People dialling 999 for non-emergency calls can put lives at risk because it could delay someone who really needs urgent help getting through.

“New Year’s Eve is always very busy and people calling 999 for non-emergencies and silly pranks can have a major impact on members of the public who need the police.

“I don’t want a person to call 999 and be delayed because someone else is calling to report something that is not an emergency or, worse still, that is completely ridiculous and a deliberate joke.”

New Year’s Eve is the force’s busiest night, and officers and staff are preparing to receive thousands of calls and ensure each of them is answered quickly, appropriately graded and allocated with the correct resources to ensure people’s evenings pass off safely.

Last New Year, GMP’s call handlers dealt with more than 3,000 emergency calls in just six hours after midnight and thousands more were taken on the force’s non-emergency number.

Further examples of some of the frustrating calls received by GMP’s call handlers in the last few months of 2008 include: A priest rang 999 because he was in WH Smiths at Manchester airport and the staff wouldn’t let him use their toilet.

A man rang 999 and said that he had asked the shop assistant at the pizza shop not to put mushrooms on his pizza and he had put mushrooms on it.

A woman called 999 to say that she was unable to get through to Strictly Come Dancing to vote for Tom Chambers in the final.

A man rang 999 to ask what his mobile number was because he knew it would appear on the call handler’s computer screen.