Call 999 in an emergency
Only call 999 in an emergency. An emergency is when someone is being threatened or at risk of getting injured, or a crime is in progress.
Calls to 999 are free.
Our call operators will need to know:
- Who you are, your address and phone number
- Where the incident is happening - please be as specific as possible
- What is happening.
Call operators are trained to use their professional judgement in prioritising work. We know this can be frustrating for callers but we try to deal with calls as quickly and efficiently as possible.
All calls are recorded for training and reference purposes.
Making a hoax call to 999 is an offence. When you call 999 for something that is not an emergency, you could be preventing somebody in a real life or death situation from getting through to us. This will be investigated and action taken against those who use the number inappropriately.
101 for non-emergencies
101 is used for non-emergencies such as:
- Reporting a non-urgent crime or incident (unless the crime or incident is in progress, when you should dial 999)
- Contacting local officers
- Getting crime prevention advice
- Making us aware of policing issues in your local area
- Making an appointment with a police officer
- For any other non-emergency, such as making a complaint
One of our trained call handlers will take your details. and a log of your details and the incident or crime will be recorded.
Calls to 101 are now free of charge. The Home Office announced in March 2020 that the charge for calling the police non-emergency number will be scrapped, it previously cost 15p to call.
Calls from telephone boxes are free of charge.
It may also be that something you need to know is already covered somewhere on this website. Either use the search functionality above to look for your issue, or you can look at some of the most common reasons for people calling 101. Maybe what you want to know has already been included here?
Some common reasons for calling 101
Contact us online
Your message will be sent to our Crime and Communications Centre and will be answered by the same team that deal with 101 non-emergency calls.
This form should not be used to report an offence/crime, incident or to pass sensitive information to the police.
If you wish to speak to us about a non-urgent query or to report a crime please call our non-emergency 101 number.
The forms are not monitored 24/7 and the team will get back to you within 5 working days. If you wish to speak to us sooner, please can 101 or in an emergency call 999.
Enquire online
Text phone option for hard of hearing or speech impaired
If you are deaf, hard of hearing or speech impaired, you can textphone us on 18001 101.
We're signed up to the 999 Relay Assistant, which provides a 999 service through Textphone or the 999 Relay Assistant app. For more information on downloading and using the app or text service, please visit the Next Generation Text Service website
Contact us from abroad
If you need to contact Wiltshire Police from Scotland or abroad, please telephone 01380 826614 for non-emergencies.
Emergency Text Service
EmergencySMS
The emergencySMS service lets deaf, hard of hearing and speech-impaired people in the UK send an SMS text message to the UK 999 service where it will be passed to the police, ambulance, fire rescue, or coastguard.
Simply by sending an SMS message to 999 you can call for help and the emergency services will be able to reply to you.
You will need to register your mobile phone before using the emergencySMS service. This can be done on the Relay UK emergency text service national website
This is a service provided by a national organisation.
REMEMBER: This is an emergency service and must only be used in an emergency as below.
- Life is at risk
- Crime/trouble is happening now
- Someone is injured or threatened
- Person committing crime is near
- There is a fire or people trapped
- You need an ambulance urgently
- Someone is in trouble, or missing, at sea
- Someone is in trouble on the cliffs or on the shoreline.
Contact us anonymously
You can report crimes anonymously on the Crimestoppers website. The site allows you to safely and securely pass information about crime or a most wanted appeal to us. You can also call them on 24/7 on 0800 555 111.
The role of our Crime and Communications Centre
The Crime and Communications Centre (CCC) at Police Headquarters in Devizes is where Wiltshire Police manages operations for spontaneous incidents across the whole county. The CCC is where all 101 and 999 calls are received; reports of crime and incidents are triaged, initially investigated and allocated police resources.
The CCC is usually the first point of contact the public have with the police; our staff are more often than not the first voice heard by victims of crime and those who are vulnerable and frightened. Our dedicated teams will assess threat, harm and risk to make crucial police resourcing decisions, assist officers on the ground with records checks and direct them to incidents.
Employing around 220 members of staff and operating 24/7, the CCC receives over 300,000 101 calls and more than 80,000 999 calls a year.
We investigate around 36,000 reports of crime, despatch officers to over 127,000 incidents and conduct more than 90,000 records checks for officers over the radio every single year.
See what opportunities are available within the Crime and Communications Centre.
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