North Wales Police release examples of unnecessary 999 calls

Report of someone being unable to move a couch and a complaint about not being able to get through to a catalogue company are just some of the examples of the 999 calls North Wales Police have received over the last few weeks.

The information has been made public as North Wales Police launch their campaign to help reduce the amount of unnecessary and inappropriate calls made to the Joint Communications Centre in St Asaph.

Last year the Force received around 520,000 calls including emergency and non-emergency calls.

Over the last 12 months 11,390 calls made to the centre have been abandoned with a high percentage of those being 999 calls.

Temporary Superintendent Alex Goss is urging people to make sure that they use the 999-line appropriately, and only contact the non-emergency line if it is a police matter. He said:

“Each unnecessary call to us reduces time available for calls which are for genuine policing matters.

“Phoning 999 – which is an emergency line, for trivial matters such as being annoyed with catalogue companies is a complete waste of resources, and could possibly prevent a genuine life or death emergency call being put through.”