Anna VarleHome and social affairs correspondent
Devon and Cornwall Police is urging the public to only call 999 in a genuine emergency during the Christmas period.
The force receives an average of 1,000 emergency calls and 2,000 101 calls a day over the festive period, which is one of the busiest times of year, the police said.
Examples of inappropriate calls police dispatchers have received include one from a man who had not had his takeaway delivered and one who was stuck in handcuffs.
Ch Insp Greg Hine said: “We have had incidents where people ring 999 because their pizza hasn’t turned up or there’s a cat stuck on a roundabout, which is not an appropriate use of 999.”
He added: “It’s appropriate to ring 999 for example if someone’s life is at risk of serious injury, if there is a crime in progress or if there is a serious collision on the road.”
Force incident manager, Shaun Wallis, said that accidental calls also take up a lot of police time.
“We don’t know you have phoned in error so we allocate a resource to phone you back until we are satisfied there is no genuine emergency.
“The public can really help by staying on the line, saying they’ve made a mistake and confirming who they are,” he added.
One of the busiest times of the Christmas period is in the early hours of New Year’s Day, the police said.
Contact officer, Cheryl Nutbean, 48, has worked in the police control centre in Plymouth for just over a year.
She said: “There are quite a lot of fights which happen at this time of year, either domestics or people out with friends and things have just got out of hand.”
The police recommend people use the 101 call back service if it is not an emergency, where a call handler will call them back within an average of 14 minutes.
