Published: Wednesday, 8th October, 2008 12:30
Emergency services slam hoax caller
By Court Reporter
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Sheriff David Mackie told hoax caller Alan Milne that he had committed a serious offence.
Pic by: David Robertson
A TEENAGER who made hoax calls to the police and fire brigade could have cost lives, say the emergency services.
Alan Milne (17), of Gartmorn Road, Sauchie, appeared at Alloa Sheriff Court on Thursday and pled guilty to phoning 999 and falsely reporting incidents of fire raising and vandalism on 29 August at Gartmorn Road. He also admitted making another hoax call to the emergency services on the same date in Drysdale Street, falsely claiming that an assault had taken place.
Fiscal depute Stuart Ronnie told the court that Milne phoned 999, giving another name, and said that two youths were trying to set fire to garages and spray paint them.
Police were dispatched but no fire or youths were found and, on the same day, he once again called 999 saying bins were on fire, but when the fire service arrived there was no sign of a fire.
Milne was later traced by police but during an interview told them he couldn’t remember much about the calls and had nowhere to go or to stay.
A fire service spokesman from Alloa station told the Advertiser, “Hoax calls like this are very dangerous. If an appliance attends a hoax call and there is then an actual emergency there could be a delay in a second appliance getting there because the chances are it will come from further away, which would probably be Stirling in our case.
“By the time the second appliance arrives a fire could have developed further, to the stage where someone dies, or in the case of a road accident someone could be trapped longer than they need to be, so there is a real danger to lives.”
And Superintendent Gavin Buist, deputy head of specialist services, said, “It is important to remember that the police – and other emergency services – have limited resources. We simply can’t afford to have police officers, firefighters or ambulance crews wasting time attending to hoax calls, while genuine callers have to wait.
“It may sound dramatic to say that lives are put at risk in these situations, but in many cases that is true.
“Making hoax calls is totally irresponsible and diverts valuable and skilled resources away from the people who need them most.”
On Thursday, Milne’s solicitor Jim Savage said that the hoax calls reflected a considerable degree of immaturity on his client’s part, and that Milne’s relationship with his parents had broken down and he was now staying in a B&B in Alloa.
Sheriff David Mackie sentenced Milne to 12 months’ probation, 80 hours of community service and ordered him to undertake a psychiatric assessment.
He said, “What you did is a serious offence, taking police officers and firefighters away from their normal duties and wasting their time. This is something the courts take very seriously and in different circumstances I would have been thinking of a custodial sentence.”
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