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'Completely irresponsible' woman called emergency services to report theft of snowman

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Saturday, December 4, 2010

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A woman from Kent, England called 999 after noticing the snowman outside her house had vanished.
Image: Haltiamieli.

Police in Kent, England have described a woman who called the emergency services to report the theft of a snowman as "completely irresponsible." The woman rang 999 after noticing the snowman outside her house had vanished.

"There's been a theft from outside my house," she told the operator. "I haven't been out to check on him for five hours but I went outside for a fag and he's gone." When asked who had disappeared, the woman said: "my snowman." Chief inspector Simon Black said that the call "could have cost someone's life if there was a genuine emergency and they couldn't get through."

The woman told the operator: "I thought that with it being icy and there not being anybody about he'd be safe. It ain't a nice road but you don't expect anybody to nick your snowman." Black said that they had spoken with the woman and warned her not to call unless she was in an emergency.

Even though abusing the emergency services system is a prosecutable offence in Britain, she will not be charged. "In this case the woman genuinely thought this was a theft that she should report it because she'd used pound coins for the eyes and teaspoons for the arms," Black added.


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  This page is archived, and is no longer publicly editable.
Articles presented on Wikinews reflect the specific time at which they were written and published, and do not attempt to encompass events or knowledge which occur or become known after their publication.

Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators.

Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.

Note that some listed sources or external links may no longer be available online due to age.
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