Woman who rang 999 more than 1,200 times is jailed
A woman who rang 999 more than 1,200 times at a cost to the Met Police of more than £10,000 has been jailed.
Jelana Bobrova, 54, was sentenced to 10 weeks in prison after she continued to make 999 calls to police despite being given a criminal behaviour order.
Bobrova made 39 rambling calls to the emergency services in just four hours on Sunday 16 February during which she challenged police to arrest her, breaching the Criminal Behaviour Order she’d been given in November.
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Sergeant Terry Collman said: “The Metropolitan Police answers more than 4.5 million calls per year. In 2019, there were 175,000 calls recorded as misuse calls.
“This amounted to a yearly cost to the Met of more than £1.3m.”
He added: “Nuisance calls to police are absolutely not acceptable, they are certainly not funny and are a huge waste of time and money.
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“These calls prevent people who are in a genuine emergency from speaking to police and receiving help when they most need it.
Bobrova, of Clapham, south London, who was arrested on 23 February, denied making the calls, blaming a “technical glitch”.
She was sentenced the next day at Croydon Magistrates' Court after she was found guilty of breaching the Criminal Behaviour Order she received in November 2019, which banned her from making “false calls".
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Sgt Collman added:“I hope the sentence given to Bobrova will send a message to anyone who thinks this immature behaviour is a form of entertainment.”
In December, the Met Police said a mistake with a chip-shop order, in which someone got three saveloy sausages instead of one, and an out-of-date packet of biscuits were among more than 22,000 time-wasting calls.
Call handlers identified 22,491 hoax 999 calls to the Metropolitan police in the first 11 months of 2019, the force said.
