"My neighbour is heading out for his second run and I want him arrested"
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Northamptonshire Police is urging people to take individual responsibility and exercise common sense as the Force deals with a deluge of calls from the public reporting people or asking Covid-19 related questions.
"Is it illegal to not cough in a tissue?"
"Can I still travel to the airport today?"
"Someone is walking more than two dogs in my street, that's illegal."
"Do I need a special ID to go out and cut down a tree?"
"My neighbour has taken his car off the drive, he's not gone anywhere, but I'm sure he's about to, come and stop him before he does."
"My wife doesn't think her job is essential but I do and she's working from home. Is there anything I can do?"
These are just a fraction of the calls the Northamptonshire Police control room has received in recent days relating to Covid-19.
Superintendent Ash Tuckley, who heads the Force control room, said: "We don't want to discourage people from reporting but they absolutely need to exercise caution when calling us.
"There is a lot of information available on the gov.uk/coronavirus website that people can access from their homes without having to call an emergency service.
"We also operate online reporting forms at northants.police.uk that people can access to avoid tying up our call staff who could be answering emergency calls.
"While we haven't seen a significant increase in crime, there has been an increase in calls to us, especially calls about people not abiding by the government’s guidelines. We are also seeing calls about commercial burglaries. We want to be able to prioritise emergency crimes and need to the public to be mindful when they call us.
"We need the public to help us help them."
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