2,030 999 calls to West Yorkshire Police on NYE

7 January 2019, 11:34 | Updated: 7 January 2019, 11:47

More than 2,000 emergency calls were made to West Yorkshire Police on New Year's Eve - an increase of 23% compared with 2017.

2,030 999 calls were received by the police Customer Contact Centre in West Yorkshire between 7am on the 31 December and 7am on 1 January.

That's an extra 380 emergency calls compared to last year.

109 of the calls were related to domestic violence, 116 were violence against a person related and 127 were concern for safety calls.

West Yorkshire Police have also revealed that 97 of the emergency calls were 'pocket dials' but say staff have to treat every 999 call as a genuine emergency.

Tom Donohoe, Senior Contact Manager for West Yorkshire Police says:

"New Year’s Eve is always a very busy night for the Customer Contact Centre and it was especially busy this time.

We have to treat each 999 call as a genuine emergency – so we have to presume that the caller is someone facing a serious situation in their life and needing our help, quickly.

Our call handlers have to investigate every call – and that includes ‘pocket dials’ and people calling in for a lift home - yes, we really had calls to taxi people home.

Despite this demand for service our call handlers coped extremely well, they are some of the ‘unsung heroes’ of the Force, they are usually the first person someone speaks to when they are facing a terrible time in their life."