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I can't quite believe this...

http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/439120/Giggling-999-call-handler-sacked-for-being-too-jolly?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+daily-express-news-showbiz+%28Daily+Express+%3A%3A+News+%2F+Showbiz+Feed%29

The poor women tries to build up a rapport with a nervous caller who is shopping a relative for drink driving, and she gets the sack?!

In my job, I have to call 999 more often than I would like, and the biggest bonus is when you get a proper human on the other end, not a robot reading from a fething teleprompter....

I just had to laugh when I saw the tittle!!
Ive never had to call 999 but if I do I'd rather someone joyful than some robot a the other end.

If you look at the police statement for misconduct in the link her 'inappropriate manner' was the probable cause of why she mishandled the case, not the mishandling itself.
On the link you will see the finding that she miscategorised and failed to follow up on the 999 call properly. That is actionable, but a little heavy handed.

The press will of course report she was sacked for laughing, instead of failure to categorise an alertable call. The report reads she also failed to search for backup records to corroborate the report. If someone is reported DUI the police are supposed to immediately action as lives are at stake.

'Non-stop RTC' is a high level classification for vehicle related crime reports. Normally that there was a road traffic collision (RTC), note the police dont use the word 'accident' asit assumes no one was at fault, and that one or more parties did not stop (which is a serious crime in the UK). Alcohol related vehicular offences of any kind are also added to this category, even if no accident occurs. This is a high priority alert on a par with calls over violent behaviour.

'Suspicious circumstances' means that the public reports something that might be problematic but no crime is as yet reported, it can technically be investigated if manpower is sufficient, it almost never is but normally it is ignored unless several reports of the same activity occur. These logs are kept on file and are cross referenced to see if a partern of crime emerges, if so the 'Suspicious circumstance' is added to the list of the things the attending officer has to look into.

Bottom line is the police don't sit on claims of DUI because its important to catch such people before they run over people at pedestrian crossings or ram another road user, or road race/rage etc


It makes far better copy for the Express just to blame the police for being sour, when the laughter was incidental to the issue except as an explanation as to why the call was badly mishandled. Had the officer categorised the case correctly I doubt anything would happen to her, giggles or no giggles; also the alleged drunk driver will have been caught to be found which was the purpose of the call to begin with.

Note that the name of the caller is revealed by the paper, which is strictly confidential, and that he shopped a relative to the police . It looks like Mr Turner was approached but I wonder if he knew who he was talking to.