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Malicious and Hoax Police Emergency Calls put Lives at Risk in Lincolnshire

Lincolnshire Police are asking people to think carefully before they dial 999 as trivial and hoax calls could potentially put lives at risk in a genuine emergency.

In spite of regular appeals, members of the public in Lincolnshire have made inappropriate 999 calls with requests for telephone numbers, travel directions and other non-urgent enquiries, as well as hoax calls as 'jokes' or with malicious intent. The force regularly get people calling on the 999 line for non emergency calls just because they have run out of credit on their phone.

Lincolnshire Police receive an average of 80,000 emergency calls each year into their Force Communications Centre. With such a high volume, inappropriate or hoax calls have a significant impact on the capacity of call takers to respond and deal with genuine emergency calls.

In a single day recently, Lincolnshire Police received 10 nuisance calls from one mobile phone number. These ranged from dialling in an putting the phone down on the operator, to significant verbal abuse. Chief Inspector Simon Craft, Head of the Force Communications and Control Centre says, "Every false or inappropriate call to Lincolnshire Police takes up time we badly need and stops someone who really needs urgent help from getting through to us."

"Deliberate hoaxers can and will be traced, as the number calling in is displayed and we will trace it back". "In some circumstances we can prosecute individuals or arrange for telephone numbers to be disconnected by the phone company".

Every minute a 999 operator spends speaking to a caller with a non-urgent enquiry jeopardises immediate responses to genuine emergencies, so members of the public are urged to think before they dial.

You should only ring the 999 system if:

• Someone's life is at risk or someone is being physically threatened
• When a crime is in progress or if the offenders are still nearby
• There is a road traffic collision causing personal injury or danger

You can contact Lincolnshire Police on 0300 111 0300 for every other non-emergency situation - for example where no immediate police response is required or the matter does not require police attendance at all.

Chief Inspector Craft says, "People who misuse the 999 number should be aware of the implications of this and realise that they could be putting lives at risk. Phoning 999 for routine matters will not result in a quicker or improved service for the caller, as they will be asked to ring back on the non-emergency number. People who are thoughtless or malicious in using the 999 number should realise that one day they may need the police in a genuine emergency, and they would not want their response to be hampered by someone misusing the system".

Article Published: 01/09/2010

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