Abandoned uneaten pizza among time-wasting calls to Mid Sussex police

Mid Sussex prevention inspector Darren Taylor revealed the hoax calls on Twitter.

He tweeted: “The team had a few calls over the weekend of odd things which had appeared on roads.

“A roll of carpet, a mattress, large cupboard boxes but the best one was a member of the public who rang 999 to inform us there was an abandoned uneaten pizza in the middle of a road in Scaynes Hill. That tops the lot.”

But there were some arrests following incidents in the district over the weekend.

Insp Taylor said a suspected shoplifter in Burgess Hill was taken into custody.

He tweeted: “A shoplifter who stole over £100 of meat and bread rolls from Burgess Hill didn’t bargain for the fact that the team would get involved. One in custody for theft, assaulting police and obstruction. All the meat recovered from a freezer. Vehicle seized as well.”

On Saturday (July 25), Insp Taylor thanked residents of Franklands Village in Haywards Heath on Saturday for alerting officers to a ‘drunk man who had climbed up a tree and was shouting at the top of his voice’.

He added: “He decided to play chicken with the traffic so one in custody for being drunk and disorderly.”

And on Friday (July 24), officers responded to reports of a large car cruising gathering in Burgess Hill – and a somewhat other traffic related incident.

Insp Taylor tweeted: “We responded to a sighting of a male in only his underpants next to his possible broken down vehicle on the A264.”

Other incidents included a suspected drink-driver in Cuckfield, a damaged taxi in Hassocks and anti-social behaviour.

A message from the Editor, Gary Shipton:

In order for us to continue to provide high quality and trusted local news, I am asking you to please purchase a copy of our newspapers.

With the coronavirus lockdown having a major impact on many of our local valued advertisers - and consequently the advertising that we receive - we are more reliant than ever on you helping us to provide you with news and information by buying a copy of our newspapers.

Our journalists are highly trained and our content is independently regulated by IPSO to some of the most rigorous standards in the world. But being your eyes and ears comes at a price. So we need your support more than ever to buy our newspapers during this crisis.

Stay safe, and best wishes.