Call handler mix up sees police sent to Glasgow instead of Aberdeen

It’s emerged Police call-handlers sent officers to investigate an attempted break-in hundreds of miles away from where it actually happened.

They received the call to the Tesco Aberdeen’s Great Western Road around 5.30am on 3rd April – but confusion over the location meant officers were initially dispatched to a branch of the supermarket on a road of the same name in Glasgow.

Once the mistake was realised, officers arrived at the correct address in the Granite City, just before 9.00am that morning.

The mistake happened less than a week after control rooms in the North East were closed on 28th March, meaning all calls are now initially dealt with in the central belt, before being transferred to Dundee for dispatch.

Superintendent Matt Richards of Police Scotland's Contact Command Control Division said:

"A call was received at around 5.30am on Monday morning (April 3, 2017) in relation to damage caused to a door on Great Western Road which had taken place overnight. The call was graded appropriately based on the initial information provided and allocated to officers.

"After receiving further information about the location of the store, officers in Aberdeen were in attendance by 8.50am that morning. Enquiries into the incident are currently ongoing."