THE Bolton Evening News and the fire service have launched a joint campaign to track down malicious callers who put other people's lives at risk by making false 999 calls. It costs £1,700 for the fire service to turn out to just one hoax incident. Wes Wright reports.

HOAX emergency calls are a modern menace. Children make them and, unbelievably, many adults also make them.

And often it is not just one call but a series of malicious 999 calls sending much needed fire engines out to fictitious alarms all over Bolton.

The cost can be staggering: according to the fire brigade, with everything taken into account just one hoax call costs £1,700.

In 2000 the four stations in Bolton, including Bolton Central fire station, Horwich, Farnworth and Bolton North at Crompton Way turned out on a total of 947 hoax calls.

At £1,700 a call that costs taxpayers a staggering £1,609,900 a year.

But thanks to an active programme to counteract hoax callers the numbers for July 2005 to July 2006 have been dramatically reduced to 391 hoax calls costing a total of £664,700.

But that is still way too much says Ian Duckworth, watch manager at Bolton Central fire station, who has spent the past few years working hard to combat malicious callers.

"Every time someone makes a hoax call we log and record it and keep it for a long time. We also log the address the caller wants the engines to go to.

"And we follow up all the hoax calls. If it's a child we will go to the school and give a lecture to the appropriate years telling them of the dangers of making hoax calls.

"If it's an adult making the call we will prosecute where we have sufficient evidence and the police can now give £80 fixed penalty fines and they have been giving a lot of these out in Bolton.

"One man in Breightmet made calls and we traced him and took him to court. He was given a 12 month community service order which is quite severe. If he does it again then he could go to jail.

"We had a big problem with children making calls in Great Lever, but following visits to schools that has stopped completely.

"We also had big problems in Breightmet in the Red Lane, Padbury Way area and following visits to schools that has improved as well."

He welcomed the Bolton Evening News' campaign where MP3 recordings of hoax callers have been placed on our website.

"We are using new technology to stop an age-old problem. If people listen to the calls and they are from the same area they might know who the caller is.

"They can call the fire service, the police or Crimestoppers and let us know who they are.

"If someone makes a hoax call to Bolton Central fire station the two vehicles stationed there will be sent out and that leaves no engines for other calls. Cover has to be provided from other stations in Bolton.

"We keep getting a lot of malicious calls about Holden Mill on Blackburn Road which, because it is a big building, needs three engines.

"We have to get a key holder out and we are often there for more than an hour that means cover for Bolton Central and another station has to be provided by other stations and that could risk people's lives if it delays our response to a genuine emergency call," he said.

Mr Duckworth said that every 999 call is recorded by the fire brigade call centre.

Operators use a system of call challenging where they interrogate callers based on their experience of previous emergency calls.

They base what they ask on the attitude and answers given by the caller. Often they will ask a caller outright if what they are saying is true giving the hoaxer a chance to back down.

When a 999 call is made it goes to an emergency call handling centre and BT then routes the call through to the fire service.

If it is from a landline they gave the fire service call centre the name and address, even if it is ex-directory.

If the call is from a mobile registered to an address then that is also given to the fire service. If it is not registered then the mobile number and the service provider is handed over to the fire service.

If it is a hoax call the fire service can ask the service provider to block the unregistered phone so it can not be used again.

It is an offence under the Telecommunications Act 1984 to make malicious calls to the emergency services and last year 350 mobiles were cut-off or blocked because of hoax calls.

To combat the problem they work with young children via their young fire cadet scheme and as part of the Prince's Trust scheme.

l One prank call was traced to the mobile phone of a 10-year-old girl who attended Lever Edge Primary School.

When the fire service tracked her down, just minutes after she made the call, she revealed a group of her friends had also been behind the calls, which firefighters claim had been going on for months.

They were able to track the girl down to her home after being given her address by her mobile phone provider. Once officers had talked to the children no more hoax calls were made.