North Yorkshire Police tweets to highlight time-wasting calls

Reports of a missing kebab and a couple sharing an intimate moment were among time-wasting 999 calls received by North Yorkshire Police.

Police chiefs said the force had seen "exceptionally high levels" of demand in July and August.

They have urged people not to make inappropriate calls.

It comes as the force hosts its summer Tweetathon, a campaign which aims to highlight the work of control room staff.

During a similar event at Christmas, control room staff took calls about a naked man at the scene of a car crash in Northallerton and a couple being intimate near a hotel in Scarborough.

Supt Jason Dickson said the event highlighted the variety of calls communications officers dealt with on a daily basis.

"It is not appropriate to ring 999 because your taxi hasn't arrived, or because you've got a complaint about a pizza you've bought from a takeaway after a night out," he said.

"I hope that publicly highlighting the volume of incidents encourages people to think about the importance of only using 999 if it's a genuine emergency."

The force said it handled 33,221 calls in total during July, 10,490 of which were 999 emergency calls, the highest number on record.

It said the easing of Covid restrictions, an influx of visitors and the recent good weather contributed to the number of calls.

From 14:00 BST on Friday, the force will tweet every call that comes into the control room over a 12-hour period on its @NYorksPolice account.

Follow BBC Yorkshire on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to [email protected].