Child's desperate 999 call is a hoax

Police probing a 999 call which claimed to be a three-year-old girl reporting her mum collapsed at home have confirmed the call was a hoax.

Two ten-year-old girls living in Bridlington, East Yorkshire, have been identified as the callers and have been spoken to by officers this afternoon.

In the call to the ambulance service a girl, who gave her name as Ellie, claimed her mum had fallen at her family home in Leeds.

She said she was aged three and that her mother's name was Stacey Hall.

The call was made at 10.53am yesterday but the police hadn't been able to trace it until an appeal was put out this morning.

Police are now liaising with the girls’ parents to take appropriate action.

Detective Chief Inspector Lisa Griffin, of the Homicide and Major Enquiry Team, said: “We are pleased that our investigation has shown that we don’t have a vulnerable little girl out there with her mum collapsed beside her, although it is obviously incredibly frustrating that this has turned out to be a hoax

"We are very grateful to the public and the media for all the support they have given us in appealing for information over this incident.

"We treated the call as genuine on the basis of what was said what could be established in the initial stages of the investigation. Our priority is always to help the public and protect life as was our overriding focus in this investigation.

"This incident again highlights how misuse of the 999 system can cause significant unnecessary work for the emergency services who have limited resources to deal with genuine calls for help from members of the public. We hope it will help to remind people of the serious consequences of misusing the 999 system."

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