Don't call Nottinghamshire Police if your turkey doesn't fit in the oven

Nottinghamshire Police are urging people to think before they dial this Christmas as time-wasting calls cost time, money and could be the difference between answering a genuine call quicker.

Superintendent Paul Burrows, from Nottinghamshire Police’s Contact Management department, said: “The vast majority of the public understand that 999 is only for emergency calls but, despite the work we regularly do in the media, online and over-the-phone to explain to people how to use 999 responsibly, we do still receive a high number of misplaced calls to our emergency number.

"While some of the misplaced calls we receive range from honest errors of judgement to the more unusual, there is a serious point to be made here as every misplaced call our emergency call handlers receive has the potential to delay us from responding to genuine emergencies.”

The force say, like other years previously, the control staff will be asked random festive questions and taking calls from people who simply could have just searched online for the answer.

Notts Police say they do not want to be getting calls from people saying their turkey does not fit in the oven, the carol singer are out of tune and there are no brussel sprouts left in the supermarket.

Please think before dialling and only call 999 when life is in danger, someone is seriously injured, someone is using or threatening to use violence, a crime is in progress, there is serious damage being caused to property or whenever else an immediate police response is required.

Superintendent Burrows added: “All we are asking is that people only call 999 in genuine emergencies and remember that there are other ways to contact us for less urgent enquiries, with the Nottinghamshire Police website - offering advice on hundreds of policing and non-policing issues and the 101 non-emergency number also available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”