Mum slams police response to 999 calls

FEARFUL: Maxine Jones and the damaged front door

OLDHAM Police have been slammed for distress call response times residents claim put their lives in danger.

In one incident a drunken man tried to get into the house, smashing the front door and car windscreen as she frantically phoned 999.

Despite mother-of-one Maxine Jones making repeated calls to police from her Strinesdale property, officers didn’t arrive for three hours, she claims.

Maxine told the operator her full address during the original call at 5.30am on a Sunday - but hung up because she thought the attacker was getting in her home.

She said: “The police didn’t come out. I made more calls to 999 and still the police didn’t come out.

“My life was put in danger; This was an unprovoked attack, as I do not know the man. I am just angry that it can take the police this long to come out over an emergency.”

Following another Incident (see separate story), residents in Oriel Avenue, Coppice, wrote to the Independent Police Complaints Commission over what they claim were police failings in tackling a man who threatened them, damaged cars and smashed his way into a house.

Greater Manchester Police uses a “graded” response system: incidents with an immediate threat to life are given a higher priority than other calls.

Chief Insp Andy Hardy said they were initially told the offender had left the scene, which meant there was no threat. But he admitted that after the follow-up call from the victim they should have increased the response level.

After arriving at the scene, officers arrested a suspect who has since been charged.

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