Woman jailed for making 1,300 nuisance 999 calls costing over £10,000

2 March 2020, 08:25

A woman has been jailed for making almost 1,300 nuisance 999 calls, costing the Metropolitan Police over £10,000.

Jelana Bobrova was sentenced to ten weeks in prison for breaching the Criminal Behaviour Order she received in November 2019 for her nuisance and persistent calling.

The 54-year-old, of Clapham, south London, made 39 calls to the emergency number on February 16 in just four hours.

In every call she appeared to be rambling and challenged police to arrest her.

She was arrested on 23 February for breaching her CBO, which prohibited her from making false calls.

Bobrova denied placing the calls and said there was a technical glitch. She was sentenced the following day at Croydon Magistrates' Court.

Bobrova’s calls over a period of three years amounted to 1,278 at a cost of more than £10,000 to the MPS.

Police Sergeant Terry Collman said: “The Metropolitan Police answers more than 4.5 million calls per year. In 2019, there were 175,000 calls recorded as misuse calls. This amounted to a yearly cost to the Met of more than £1.3m.

“Nuisance calls to police are absolutely not acceptable, they are certainly not funny and are a huge waste of time and money.

“These calls prevent people who are in a genuine emergency from speaking to police and receiving help when they most need it.

“I hope the sentence given to Bobrova will send a message to anyone who thinks this immature behaviour is a form of entertainment.”