Their selfish actions could have cost lives. By ringing 999 and clogging up the system, real life or death calls could have been missed.
The pandemic has only increased the importance of the 999 emergency number. That is why the courts take such crimes so seriously, and hoax offenders are often sent to jail for abusing the system.
Here the M.E.N. looks back at some of the hoax callers who ended up in court. Routh repeatedly called 999, variously threatening to stab his ex-partner and take his own life.
Officers had to be called out to his former partner's home. She wasn't there, and they later found Routh at home eating a roast dinner.
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