@farmergilesnomore
There's a thing being shared on facebook these days about pressing a certain number (555?) if you can't speak or are afraid etc. Is that true? Also if the person can't tell you their location for whatever reason can you trace their number?
I’m a police call handler. It’s the Met Auto 55 system you’re referring to I believe. If you ring police from a landline then your address details will automatically come through to us. Our policy is any abandoned or silent 999 calls with an address we dispatch to as an emergency. It’s harder with mobiles. We check our system to see if there have been any previous calls from that number. If that’s the case we dispatch as an emergency to the last know address. If there is no trace of the number on our systems and there is no sound of disturbance we have nothing to go on so chances are wouldn’t be able to dispatch. The 55 is fab if there’s evidence of a disturbance going on so we know that help is needed but we get so many kids ringing each day and pressing 55 that we can dispatch to them all. If we believe that someone is in danger we would do subscriber checks or, failing that, triangulation where we pinpoint the location of the phone from the nearest masts. Unfortunately this is expensive so is only done if we believe the call to be high risk.
My advice would be to register your mobile with the 999 text service. If you’re ever unable to speak you can then text 999 with location, what’s going on, any weapons etc. Far quicker than waiting for police/BT try to trade you. This is usually for dead people do I would only advise to use it in a genuine emergency when you aren’t able to speak.
