EXCLUSIVE: The staggering number of hoax calls South Yorkshire Police deal with

Figures released under the Freedom of Information Act showed South Yorkshire Police handled 1,333 hoax calls in 2017 and officers have urged those who make malicious calls to think about the consequences of their actions.

The statistics come after armed police attended a property in Mount Street, Sharrow, on January 28 following a call claiming a man had a gun in the house - reports which were found to be false.

Supt Bob Chapman, head of force communications, said: "From our point of view one hoax call is one too many but we had approximately 1,300 last year and, while that figure in itself is not huge, in terms of call volume it's a majorly significant issue.

"All calls are presented and dealt with as genuine until the call handler identifies it's a hoax. All hoax calls do is produce an unwanted distraction and have consequences in terms of my staff being able to deal with genuine calls.

"We deal with 999 calls 24-hours a day, seven days a week 365 days a year and hoax calls take away a call handler from dealing with a genuine emergency."

Of the 399 hoax calls attended by SYP in 2017, more than half - 203 - were in Sheffield.

Supt Chapman added: "Hoax callers are a total waste of resources and wastes officers' time - they're just totally unacceptable.

"My message to those that do it is that they are a complete waste of police time. We are here to deal with genuine emergencies and people who genuinely need the emergency services.

"I would ask people to think very seriously about their actions before they make the call."

A police spokesman said around a third of all 999 calls received are not genuine emergencies - made up of hoax calls but the "vast majority of which are from genuine callers who should have used the non-emergency 101 number".

Zuleika Payne, chairperson of the South Yorkshire Police Federation, said hoax calls could lead to "serious consequences" especially when coupled with a reduction in officer numbers across the county.

"When you consider how many officers the force has lost and the fact the workload certainly hasn't diminished what resources we do have are drastically overstretched.

"When looking at hoax calls you have to look at the amount of officer time that they equate to and it's important to remember that policing is predominantly concerned with protection of life and property and the prevention and detection of crime - hoax calls take officers away from that."

Ms Payne, who started with South Yorkshire Police in Sheffield in 1992, also urged hoax callers to think of genuine victims of crime before making the call to the police.

"The concern is what are the police not attending and dealing with and what about those genuine callers, victims and members of the public who genuinely needed to speak to the police," she added.

"Can you imagine if you are the victim of a serious crime and the reason for a delay is a non-genuine call? I would urge all people that take it upon themselves to make hoax calls to think about the severe consequences of their actions and refrain from doing so.

"Our resources are overstretched and, unless there is a serious investment in policing, we don't anticipate a rise in officer numbers so we have to work effectively with what we have and hoax calls certainly don't help us with that."

Anyone with information about the Mount Street incident, at around 11.10am on Sunday, January 28, should call police on 101, quoting incident number 455 of January 28.