Police officer is sacked over 999 failings

A police officer has been sacked after he mishandled a number of 999 calls, including reports of rape, domestic abuse and a suicide threat.

An investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission found that out of about 3,000 emergency calls handled in a three-month period in 2009, 141 had "significant performance issues" and 19 amounted to gross misconduct.

The 58-year-old, who was based at Bow Central Command Centre in east London, was fired following a misconduct hearing.

The IPCC investigation began in August 2009 after a woman dialled 999 to report a domestic assault. She ended the call in frustration after experiencing difficulties with the officer understanding the correct spelling of her surname.

The officer closed the call log and failed to respond to the report. The woman later explained what happened to a family friend, who also worked at the command centre, leading to the launch of the inquiry.