A WOMAN called police after her children received an unwanted Christmas present - a container full of stick insects.

Paul Richardson, deployment manager with North Yorkshire Police force control room, said: "We had a call from a woman in York who had a domestic split with her partner. He had bought the children some stick insects and a glass container, and he returned the children with the container.

"Neither of them wanted the insects, so she asked if she could bring them to the police station and leave them with us.

"I think she was surprised when we said 'no'. People think we have this endless resource that we can deal with any issue whatsoever. She was left with some advice about what police can and can't do."

The woman's call, made at around 4pm on December 21, has prompted police to remind the public to only call in genuine emergencies.

Although police initially saw the funny side of her request, Mr Richardson said there was a serious side to the call, as it took an operator away from being available to genuine emergency calls.

"It happens all the time. My colleague was straight out of training and her eyes were wide open - she said you won't believe what I've just dealt with.

"While dealing with that she's out of the line and can't deal with anything else, it takes an operator away from potentially life or death situation so we need to ask the public to think whether their call is necessary to the emergency services. Is it really something we can assist with?”

Meanwhile, retained firefighters were called away from their Christmas Day lunch after receiving reports of a telegraph pole on fire in the centre of Hawes.

Crews from Hawes and Leyburn attended at around 12.50pm but were unable to safely fight the fire because it involved electrics – so the team monitored the small blaze until electricity engineers could turn the power off.

A spokeswoman from North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue said: “Fire crews stood by because of the nature of the fire.

“An engineer arrived within the hour to power down and crews had equipment ready to use if necessary but the fire went out as soon as the power went off, with just some smouldering.”

The cause is unknown.