16 May, 2017 12:35 News

The Surrey Police Anti-Social Behaviour Team is calling time on nuisance 999 calls and is starting to issue Criminal Behaviour Orders to persistent callers who waste police and ambulance time.

Recently, the team has issued two CBOs to two men both from Walton-on-Thames, who have been making excessive nuisance calls to the emergency services for a number of years. Since the orders have been in place, the ASB team is happy to report that the individuals concerned have been complying with their orders and the nuisance calls have stopped.

Jo Grimshaw from the Surrey Police Anti-Social Behaviour Team said: “999 calls that are inappropriate, persistent and where the caller is abusive and insulting to call handlers is a real problem for the emergency services and it’s something we’re not prepared to tolerate.  

“In some of the cases we have dealt with recently one man phoned the 999 service twenty times in one day. In other instances, he would either make up injuries or tell the call handler he had weapons in his house. Each time, a police or ambulance unit would need to be dispatched and on arrival they found there was no requirement for them to be there. The man was often verbally and physically abusive to staff and call handlers although on other occasions he would start the conversation saying he was lonely and wanted to talk to someone.

“Other calls we have received include falsely reporting a relative was missing, asking to speak to the Samaritans and testing the police to see how long it would take officers to attend his address.

“The impact of this type of behaviour is huge in terms of resources, the financial cost of deploying to a bogus incident, potential risks to members of the public and the impact on call takers and front line officers and staff who have to deal with abusive and sometimes physically aggressive individuals.

“It’s often the case that the people who are abusing the 999 system need support from other agencies who are better placed to help them and we will always approach these individuals at an early stage with a multi-agency action plan to offer specialist support and help for their often complex needs. However, where there’s a lack of engagement, poor response to warnings and continued anti-social behaviour on such a dramatic scale we won’t hesitate to apply to the court for a Criminal Behaviour Order.”

Head of Contact at Surrey Police, Sarah Durston said: “On the occasions where these men did not have an emergency they may have prevented someone else who was in genuine danger from getting through to us. This presents a real risk to our ability to respond to genuine emergency calls.

“The 999 number must only be used for situations where a crime is actually in progress or someone is in danger. Calling us on 101 does not change the police response you would get in a non-emergency situation and using the right number could literally save someone’s life.”

There are a number of different ways to contact police in a non-emergency situation. The 101 non-emergency number can be used to:
- report a crime that has already happened and the suspects have left the scene;
- speak to a police officer about an ongoing case;
- make officers aware of any policing issue in your local area.
Crimes can also be reported using the online reporting system at https://report.police.uk/

Editor’s Note
The terms of the CBOs prevent the men from dialling 999 unless in a genuine emergency and using threatening or abusive language during a call or face to face contact with emergency services staff. If they breach any of the conditions they can be arrested.