A drunk nuisance call pensioner who repeatedly called 999, verbally abused call handlers and asked them to guess who he was has been jailed.
Derek Irons persistently breached his anti-social behaviour order to abuse Cheshire Police's 999 system.
The 75-year-old, of Goose Lane in Hatton, Warrington, has been sentenced to 26 weeks in prison having pleaded guilty to breaching four criminal behaviour orders.
Between 10.49pm on Sunday, July 21, and 8am on Monday, July 22, he made 22 recorded phone calls to the force to both the 999 emergency and 101 non-emergency service.
He never reported any ongoing incidents.
The majority of Iron's calls were made when he was drunk.
He would be abusive and swear at call takers. When the calls were terminated, he'd ring back.
In one call recording, he calls the 101 service and asks the handler: "I bet you can't guess who I am?"
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When asked if he has anything to report, he replies: "Yes, there is a lot. All of my life story. And everything that's happening in this country."
Eventually the handler ends the call after telling him that the line wasn't a 'chatline'.
Warrington Magistrates' Court heard how his persistent nuisance calls would have resulted in genuine calls from the public being delayed.
Dave McMahon, manager of the force control centre, said: “Irons’ drunken calls could have delayed a genuine emergency call from the public. He was also a nuisance to staff in the force control centre who had to endure his abuse.
“Despite the criminal behaviour order put in place to prevent him from making these calls he chose to ignore it and is now serving 26 weeks for the repeated breach.”
“Call handlers have a very important role to play and they are the first point of contact when the public need the police’s help.
“They are often dealing with very complex and difficult live situations, making calls like these extremely disrupting and preventing them from dealing with those who really need our help.”
“I hope this highlights to others that we do investigate cases where members of the public misuse the emergency and non-emergency lines and will seek a prosecution for those who continue to potentially put others at risk and abuse our staff.”
