After time-wasting callers including people asking for a lift home, Devon and Cornwall Police is urging people to think carefully before calling the police non-emergency 101 service this Christmas.

Inappropriate calls and emails to 101 take up valuable time of staff in the contact centres when they could be helping those in need, says officers.

This month a man called 101 at 7.30pm and again at 7.45pm from a Torquay number and asked the police to give him a lift home. This request was declined.

Another man called without giving his name or location, asking: ’Where’s my car?’

An example of a recent 101 email more or less answers its own question:

’Hi sorry I’m not sure this is worthy of police time…  I just saw a confused female pheasant near the car park by the bus station.’

As the pheasant was not causing a hazard on the public highway and did not appear to be unduly distressed, the request to ’put it back in a nice field’ was politely declined.

Another man called to tell police that he was unhappy with the work done on his wife’s nails, and that he would not be paying for the service.

Chief Superintendent Jim Nye said: ’None of these examples are police matters. While they may be amusing, they are unacceptable uses of the 101 service and underline an issue which increases call waiting times for genuine callers.

’We also ask the public to consider using online methods of contacting the police for non-emergency matters.

’These include the online crime report, our new Livechat service, the Ask the Police website and app and the national lost and found online report, all of which are available at www.devon-cornwall.police.uk/ClickB4UCall

’It is also appropriate, in a non-emergency situation, to email [email protected] with a query or report which will be received at our Exeter and Plymouth contact centres by the same staff that handle 101 and 999 calls.’