Hoax caller faces jail as Scotland fast-tracks pranksters through courts

Pranksters who endanger public safety by making bogus 999 calls during the firefighters' strike are to be fast-tracked through the courts, the legal authorities said yesterday.

In Scotland, the Lord Advocate, Colin Boyd, said the calls would be treated "with the utmost seriousness and priority".

The police showed evidence of the hardline approach when two men were hauled before the courts charged with making hoax 999 calls. In Halifax, Bryan Stanley Kyle, 37, pleaded guilty to a charge of sending a false telecom message to cause annoyance or anxiety before magistrates in the town.

He was given conditional bail while pre-sentence reports were prepared.

In Perth, James Hoy, 51, from Blairgowrie, admitted making three malicious calls minutes after the strike began, in what he said was a protest at the walkout. Sentence was deferred for four weeks.

Army fire patrols have been bombarded with hoax calls since the strike by civilian fire crews began at 6pm on Wednesday.

In the North-east, 70 hoax calls were made during the first few hours of the strike. In the Tyne and Wear and Northumberland brigade areas, more than 50 bogus 999 calls were made by 8.30pm last night. In north Wales, a man made a hoax emergency call from a mobile phone 25 minutes before the strike began.

A spokesman for the Army said he was surprised how many hoax calls the temporary firefighters were receiving. "They are trying to cover the local area but if all the vehicles have been deployed on other fires and they have nobody to attend new calls then we will re-deploy engines from other stations," he said. Staffordshire Police said it had received seven hoax calls within the first few hours of the walkout. A spokesman said: "The police are fully investigating all hoax calls and prosecutions will be pursued."

Speaking to the Scottish Parliament, Mr Boyd underlined the tough approach in uncompromising language.

"Whatever our views are on the dispute itself, hoax calls put lives in danger," he said. "I will be issuing instructions to the police and procurator fiscal as to how these reports should be dealt with and the priority that they should be given."