Saqib Hussain 999 call

[Kissnmakeup]

https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/news/leicester-news/theyre-trying-kill-im-going-8566087?int_source=amp_continue_reading&int_medium=amp&int_campaign=continue_reading_button#amp-readmore-target

I just read the transcript of a victim of murder calling the police for help. Does anyone else think the operator comes across badly? Their responses suggest they felt like they didn’t believe the victim or felt the victim was exaggerating

It reads to me like Saqib was no doubt distressed and the operator was trying to identify the exact location for officers to be dispatched to - very hard when moving especially at speed. Police control centres aren't always nearby either, my local one is 60 miles away and often the staff have little knowledge of the local area and rely on maps and things to try and ID a location if unable to give a specific address and postcode or significant landmark (and remain in that location).

But there’s also odd comments that in a state of urgency I wonder why the operator said:

1.Your phone's not dead 'cause I'm talking to you.

and below comments after he said he’s being rammed off the road:

2.You're not getting rammed off the road...

3.You came to Leicester for some food?

4.(After saying he’s being rammed off the road)
S Yeah, they're literally right behind.
O Yeah, that's fine.

I 100% disagree with OP. The call operator is being really gentle & patient with caller who is saying contradictory & confusing things. The operator is also trying to get hard facts in a constantly changing situation (about location).

Was SH driving or was their friend driving?

My laptop is completely dead and it doesn't work at all!

That's why I'm typing this right now on a laptop.

Don't you see how those are confusing contradictory statements, OP? That's what Operator is trying to understand, about the phone use & the 'rammed off road' comment (in past tense like it's finished act) etc.

Asking someone for mundane facts like did they come to Leicester for food or where they live helps them to calm down and focus when they are at risk of panic, it gives them a chance to find control in their situation.

I can't see why you read it that way. I think if it was an ordinary occurrence it would be fair. I think the call handler is remaining calm while trying to get up to speed in away they'll be able to put the correct info through to whoever goes to help (at that point). The victim is amazingly clear, but if you're not 100% familiar with that road then it's possible you'd get the direction wrong (as they did), or get the section of road a big wrong. No point in the police being on the wrong side of the road!

Also I think it's very different reading this coming post the sentencing of the murderers, because we know what happened. The call handler will have had many other calls before this. They pick up the telephone blind. It could be a rape victim, a drunken idiot, a robbery victim, reporting of a suspected domestic violence incident at the neighbours. They need to get the details of each caller and determine what type of call it is exactly. Often people who are in emergency situations aren't thinking straight (understandably) and might not give something the handler needs. They don't always sound the same level of panic either.

I actually feel dreadfully sorry for the call handler. This must have been a horrific call to have had. I think they acted professionally. Maybe there could be more training done on, I don't know, recognising roads? But rally I think that this was just one of those awful things in life where you can't provide what was needed and the fault of that was the murderers in producing the need, not the victim or the person answering the phone some distance away.

• I CAN see why you read it that way

@lljkk it’s the call operator’s job to secure help at the right time. Speaking about mundane things when someone indicates they will potentially be imminently harmed isn’t ideal - if someone was approaching the victim with any other weapon would those questions be appropriate? I doubt someone being approached by a knife carrier would find that calming or help them feel in control. I doubt this victim felt calm or in control due to the operator.

Victims calling 999 might not be coherent, you need to get the right information at the right time. I don’t think clarifying which phone was being used was the right thing when he already said people in balaclavas are following him, trying to kill him, blocking him. That question only makes sense at that time if you disbelieve the events?

Call operators surely get situations where they aren’t informed of the exact location by callers for a myriad of reasons - age, injuries, kidnap to name a few. They have other methods to triangulate a location.

A transcript of a call, trying to get details from a man who is understandably no doubt very elevated, can not be judged as cold- they were needing information on the location. I'd have to hear it to make judgment on intent but the transcript seems pretty reasonable.

I agree with you I thought the same re the operator. I think the transcript might not give the full context though - you’d need to listen.

I wondered if there was a thread about this. I read today that one of the victims had been blackmailing the mum with revealing sex tapes of her.

Call operators surely get situations where they aren’t informed of the exact location by callers for a myriad of reasons - age, injuries, kidnap to name a few. They have other methods to triangulate a location

Other methods take time though. Its not like you see on TV where they know the exact location of the phone. The fastest way is from the caller. As pp said that operator could be completely unfamiliar with the area and trying to get a location that'll allow them to get the call on & passed to despatch.

I think questioning the 'my phones dead' comment was reasonable

Repeating things back is good for clarification and it could also be for the benefit of someone sitting beside her who's trying to get someone to the location.

Calls like that are very hard to deal with & I think the call taker did a good job

Also, as an addition to my previous reply, police get called about all sorts, so they have to make sure the information is accurate/credible, especially when there may be contradictory things being said e.g. my phone is dead but calling on a mobile, went to get food but its 1am or whatever time it was and maybe an unusual distance from home to pop out for a takeaway. For every 1 genuine call like this, they probably get 50+ calls that aren't as initially presented and they need to work out the facts.

All very well trying to second guess the events, but in real time, that operator would have been under pressure to determine the facts while speaking to a clearly distressed individual.

We have no way of knowing how many such calls that operator faced.

I'm just glad that the culprits have been found guilty and sentenced. The only sad thing is that that they were not jailed permanently with no chance of parole.

There is no word to describe them - they are fortunate they faced the British justice system, and not, say one from North Korea, Wahabi Arabia or China.

No I don't. I think they were trying to pin point a location that was constantly changing whilst also trying to remain calm.

Do you ever sit back and think did the call operator think to themselves I wish I could've got help sooner, I wish I could've pin pointed the location sooner. They done their best and they could see threads like this themselves.

I mean, you seem to think it's easy so make sure you apply for a call operator job.

Many years ago, well before mobile phones were the norm, I worked in a police control room. It was so difficult to get a caller to tell me where exactly they were.
If they were in a phone box ,often the case, we would ask for the address which should have been displayed in the box near the handset, we would ask for landmarks. Could they see anything such as a business? The worst were incidents on roads/motorways, i might as well have been guessing as none could tell me an exact location.
I's really very hard to get accurate info from a person in extreme distress who can't think clearly but needs help immediately.
Keeping on talking was also to try to get the caller to calm down.It was the most stressful job I have ever done.

I heard a recording of it on a TikTok a while back, I can't remember a lot but I am pretty sure I remember thinking it really wasn't great - zero urgency at all. However I'm not a xl handler and I know they have methods that don't always seem obvious, so I reserved a bit of judgment.

You wouldn't want the operator to escalate emotion in the situation with an urgent tone. Their job is to be calm. Collect or state information. Focused on what can be done.

Asking SH for his name & address allows responders to look up if he might be known to be a fugitive or had history of being armed. It's useful factual information.

I don't understand what happened.

Did they pay the two men to kill or scare them?

Who would agree to that?

I'm not sure how Leicestershire Police's system works but with ours (neighbouring force) you can't even create an incident until not only do you have the exact location, but you need to know exactly how it's recorded on our system - it sounds like similar was happening on this call.
As an example - a major A road may only be recorded under certain towns along it but not all of them. While you're trying to do this it's hard to get all of the information the caller is giving you at the same time - bear in mind this all has to be typed up as accurately as possible - so there is sometimes a lot of clarification and asking to repeat going on even if the caller is being quite clear!

If it's a 999 call it's possible to see the rough location of where the call came from when it was originally made, however they were clearly moving at speed throughout this incident and that would have been constantly changing. There honestly is no other way of finding the location in fast time other than asking the caller.

I don't understand why they weren't advised to slow right down, if not stop?

Because they were being chased by people in balaclavas who clearly had bad intentions towards them and could have potentially been armed.

They WERE advised to drive to a police station which they declined to do. Also the person taking the call wouldn't have known how fast they were going and it wouldn't have been obvious who was driving.

I 100% agree with you OP. I have to wonder whether the caller "sounded" British Asian. Because nobody that stupid should be allowed to answer calls in a 999 control room so I can only think racism was at play here because the alternative is this operator was just that stupid. That operator should stand trial as an accessory to murder because she/he fucking handed it to them on a plate.

Then the computer system needs to change because it is not fit for purpose. It would make our roads a lot safer. Many years ago I tried to phone in a major road incident and I had no idea where it was except that it was on the southbound carriageway of the M1 between two specific junctions. That should have been enough for the police to know to get on at one junction and that they would find the incident before the next junction, but noooo, computer says no, so fuck all the motorists heading towards a major incident at 70+ MPH.

Every time something happens on the roads all they should need is "this road, north/south/east/westbound, between the junctions on this road for road x and road y." We have AI that's starting to write its own code FGS. We've successfully landed shit on the moon AND mars. Some of it has even been brought back. It shouldn't be beyond the ken of a functional modern computer system to find something given three points of reference.

I mean, if the operator had just told the girl to slow down, pull over, keep the doors locked, open her browser on this phone while staying on the call, and get the WhatThreeWords for where she had stopped, she could have saved her life. The operator chose not to do that and to instead waste time asking the woman inane questions about why she had decided to get food in Leicester and telling her she wasn't being rammed when she was.

Maybe the police could spend less money covering up for rapists and fascists and suspending them on full pay and spend more money on a computer system that makes it easier to find people.

Totally agree it needs to change!

Although ours could actually have found you on the M1 between two junctions.

It was a man not a girl wasn't it in this occasion? I never would have told them to stop in these circumstances. They were being chased by two other vehicles full of people in balaclavas - potentially being rammed - if they'd pulled over and sat there downloading an app that could also have cost them their lives in this situation if the people chasing them had been armed.

@BiscuitsandPuffin Yeah that operator was so stupid not instructing them to pull over. Its a shame you didn't take the call you'd have done much better telling them to pull over, open their browser and get the what3words for where they stopped. I'm sure the people chasing them would of stopped trying to ram them off the road while they did that. Very easy to judge after the fact.