Chorley woman who made nuisance 999 calls gets suspended jail term

Kathleen Gorman, of Clover Road, Chorley, repeatedly contacted Lancashire Police on the 999 number without a genuine and serious reason on October 24 - in breach of a court order imposed for similar behaviour.

She was jailed for 18 weeks earlier last year for committing similar offences on June 29.

And those offences followed a similar incident in March where she had contacted the police despite the operators warning not to ring again unless there was a genuine need for police assistance.

The bench at Preston Magistrates’ Court ruled the current offence was so serious neither a fine or community sentence could be justified - due to her “previous persistent offending” in 2019.

The 57-year-old was given 16 weeks in prison, suspended for 12 months.

She was given credit for her guilty plea and ordered to pay a £122 victim surcharge.

Six BT centres handle all the UK’s 999 calls, passing them on to the relevant emergency service.

In September, a survey of more than 2,000 adults by BT showed that 4% did not know when to call 999 or 112, or non-emergency numbers such as 101 and 111.

Only around a third knew they could call 101 for a non-emergency police issue.

The number of 999 calls handled by BT has increased from 25 million in 2000 to 33 million in 2018, with most made from a mobile phone.