Tweetathon insight into police 999 operation

North Yorkshire Police will tweet every call that comes in to them during a 12-hour period from 2pm tomorrow (Friday August 19) until 2am on Saturday.

The popular event, known as the Tweetathon aims to give members of the public an insight into the volume of calls that the force deals with, including the amount of inappropriate, ‘pocket dials’, or misdirected calls the force receives.

During the last Tweetathon calls ranged from a missing kebab; to a naked man at the scene of a car crash in Northallerton; to a couple having an intimate moment by some garages behind a Scarborough hotel.

The tweetathon can be followed on the North Yorkshire Police Twitter account @NYorksPolice with the hashtag #NYPfor12.

As anticipated, the force has seen exceptional high levels of demand during July and August. North Yorkshire Police handled 33,221 calls in total during July, 10,490 of which were ‘999’ emergency calls, which is not only the highest July volumes in history recorded for the force, but their highest month on record.

Superintendent Jason Dickson, head of customer contact at North Yorkshire Police, said: “The Tweetathon is always popular as it shows the public the variety of calls that our communications officers deal with daily.

“I hope that publicly highlighting the volume of incidents encourages people to think about the importance of only using 999 if it’s a genuine emergency.

“We take hundreds of calls every day and want to be able to deliver an exemplary service to everyone who contacts us.”