Hoax caller ordered to meet with emergency services

A 21-year-old man has admitted five charges of making false calls to the 111 communications centre. Photo / Thinkstock

A Cobden man who sent emergency services racing in all directions in the lead up to Christmas has been ordered to meet with representatives of police and the Fire Service to explain his actions.

Anthony Kaye, 21, admitted five charges of making false calls to the 111 communications centre from December 22 to 25, when he appeared in Greymouth District Court yesterday.

Police prosecutor Steven Greer said Kaye was in the vicinity of Rugby Park when the Christmas in the Park concert, attended by thousands of children, was being held on December 22. He placed a call saying that he had witnessed a man armed with a sawn-off shotgun smash a window and enter a house in Marlborough Street adjacent to the park.

As a result of the call, armed police surrounded and entered the house, but found no evidence of a crime.

At 11.20pm that night Kaye dialled 111 alleging that he had been attacked by a man wielding a tomahawk and was making his way from Ngarimu Street to the hospital, but again police dispatched to the scene found nothing.

The next day he then made another hoax call alleging that a gorse fire was threatening the Top 10 Seaside Holiday Park, while another call had the Runanga Volunteer Fire Brigade racing to a non-existent fire at Seven Mile.

At 1am on Christmas Day, Kaye called 111 claiming that a man had cut himself badly while climbing through the window of a High Street address.

When police inquiries revealed that all the calls had emanated from Kaye's cellphone he accepted that he had made the first call about the shotgun, but denied the others.

Judge Stephen O'Driscoll remanded Kaye on bail for sentencing on May 5, ordering that he first attend a restorative justice conference attended by police and fire personnel so he could learn first-hand the strains that nuisance calls put on their resources.

- The Greymouth Star