Britain's worst phone hoaxer jailed after costing taxpayers £1million in false alarms

The most prolific phone hoaxer in Britain was behind bars last night after 40 years of making crank calls to the emergency services.

David Mason, 57, cost the taxpayer an estimated £1million by plaguing police, fire and ambulance crews.

He invented brawls, blazes, car smashes, medical emergencies and bomb alerts - simply so he could see the flashing blue lights of their vehicles when they turned out.

Ironically, genuine 999 calls to paramedics had to be made to take Mason to hospital after he had two heart attacks while on remand awaiting sentence for his crimes.

Yesterday he was sentenced to four years in prison after pleading guilty to causing a public nuisance. Bolton Crown Court heard he had a history of making hoax calls dating back to 1968 when he was 17.

Michael Brady, prosecuting, said: "The calls took on a variety of forms. Calls to police related to disturbances in the street and fights or people being trapped in cars.

"Calls to the ambulance service related to elderly people suffering chest pains or falling down stairs and suffering back injuries."

In one incident police officers had to force their way into a house on behalf of the ambulance service after it was thought a patient was having a heart attack, only to find the homeowner knew nothing about the call.

Mr Brady added: "He made two hoax calls on Christmas Day 2006 - the first one was to say that ten males were fighting in the street and another to say that a car had crashed and a man was trapped inside.

"He also made calls to the ambulance service saying that people were suffering from chest pains and also made a call saying that someone was breaking into a car."

The court was told that jobless Mason even posed as a police officer on two occasions in order to live out his "childish fantasies".

The regularity of the calls left some emergency crews unable to do their job properly.

Mason, of Bolton, has already served time in prison on at least six occasions over the past four decades for making hoax calls.

Police caught him after a major investigation into hoax calls in the North-West in March last year.

He told officers he derived "excitement" by seeing emergency vehicles arriving at the scene.

Passing sentence, Judge Stephen Everett told him: "The irony is you are a man with heart disease.

"If you needed an ambulance when you were dangerously ill and that ambulance is diverted by a hoax call you are the ultimate victim and could pay with your life."

He added: "I accept that you didn't commit these offences as a joke. You did so because you were socially isolated and felt lonely but there does seem to be an element of excitement in seeing emergency services responding to calls near your address."

Outside court PC Ian Deary of Bolton Police, said: "Mason has been a menace to both the emergency services and the local community, whose lives he put at risk.

"He thought nothing of the consequences of his behaviour and the fact that if officers were tied up dealing with his hoax calls that someone could have died."

Hoax calls to the emergency services are believed to cost the UK taxpayer £100million a year.