Man jailed for calling 999 to harass officers

He is probably the emergency services' worst phone harasser.

In four years, he made about 30 phone calls to emergency numbers to hassle duty officers manning the line.

He has been convicted and jailed more than four times for this.

For his latest offences, Gurcharan Singh, 56, was jailed a total of 20 months for calling police emergency number 999 and spewing vulgarities at the duty officers.

The odd-job labourer faced seven counts of phone harassment. Four were proceeded with and the rest were taken into consideration during sentencing.

In about 30 minutes on April 15, he called 999 seven times and harassed four officers who were manning the hotline.

Using expletives, he scolded the officers for lying to him and ruining his life.

He even gave his full name, identity card number and address over several calls and taunted the police to get him.

In his second call, he accused the officer of destroying his home, his children and his family.

In his last two calls, Singh said he was waiting for the police and asked why they were not there yet.

He said: "Tell your officer. The red berry is waiting for him. The red berry. Where are your officers? I am waiting here. I have a tiger with me. Do not wake up the tiger, I am telling you."

Deputy Public Prosecutor Yang Ziliang said the accused had a colourful criminal past and has been in and out of jail more than 10 times between 1975 and 2008 and also had corrective training for various offences, including disorderly behaviour and phone harassment.

UNDER THE INFLUENCE

During mitigation, his defence lawyer, Mr Ramesh Tiwary, said he committed the offences while under the influence of alcohol. Mr Tiwary said his client was under medical supervision.

During sentencing on Wednesday, District Judge Mathew Joseph said what Singh did was "absolutely deplorable".

He said: "I'm not sure if you have learnt your lesson since you have such a terrific record of harassment to police numbers."

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