So you thought KFC crisis calls to police were silly? Brunel’s bobby has even more bizarre stories
Visions of Santa Claus flying over Heathrow, the firing of a toy gun and a suspicious statue - these are all examples of phone calls the police wish they never received.
This emerged after KFC made the national news this week, when frantic chicken lovers rang the Force to tell officers that franchises had run out of chicken.
In the aftermath of the chicken crisis, IKB Insider spoke to Brunel’s campus officer, PC Barry Cilia, who confirms that “hangry” fast food lovers are not the only ones to call the police over not-so-important matters.
These are PC Cilia’s six favourites:
* Gunshots on Remembrance Day
“Every year on the 11th of November at 11am we receive three or four phone calls from people freaking out over hearing gunshots. For those of you who does not know, gunshots are always fired at “the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month” for Remembrance Day.”
* Visions of Santa “At midnight on every Christmas Eve, a person calls in an observation of a man dressed in red, flying unauthorised over Heathrow airport." Yes, they were talking about Santa.
* Suspicious Statue
“Young officers were once sent out to Windsor Castle because someone observed a woman in grey standing completely still, staring at the castle." That would be the Queen Victoria statue.
* Discussing Couple
“When I was quite new in my job, I was called out on a domestic. We always have to go to the location and check when we receive those kind of calls, but this one was really unnecessary. Basically, this couple was having an argument and just wanted some input.”
* Toy Gun Shooting
“About a year ago the police got a call from a local school, where a student had been shot by his classmate with a nerf gun. I just thought “are you really sending us that that?” Yes. The call was made by a teacher.
* Spying Boyfriend
“One of my favourites from Brunel is actually a quite recent one. We had a look at the CCTV camera that shows the Isambard Kingdom Brunel statue, and we saw this male bloke hiding behind the statue and acting strange. He was moving towards the cash machines, so I went out to have a chat with him about what he was doing. Basically, I busted him spying on his boyfriend talking to another guy. They both saw.”