Cornwall Fire & Rescue Service Newsdesk

Falmouth at 02/04/2007 01:54

Firefighters from Falmouth, along with Police and Ambulance were very quickly in attendance following a call to a house fire with a woman and child trapped inside. It was, however, established that the call was a hoax.

Whilst emergency services in Falmouth were attending this call, they were not available to answer genuine pleas for help. The delay in crews attending from further away would have put lives at risk.

It is a crime to make hoax calls to the fire brigade and following successful prosecutions, hoax callers have been given heavy fines and custodial sentences.

In addition, it is a breach of contract to misuse telephony equipment and requests can be made to telephone service providers to have the telephone disconnected. With increased development in technology, it is becoming easier to locate a caller.

If anyone has information on who was responsible for making this hoax call and other hoax calls to the emergency services, please contact Devon & Cornwall Police.

Hoax callers are putting lives at risk and must be stopped.