Operator’s warning to have-a-go hero who tackled cricket pitch vandal

A have-a go hero from Tunbridge Wells caught a vandal red-handed and rang police for help – only for the operator to warn him he could be charged with assault. John Harvey, 47, had the criminal in one hand and his mobile phone in the other as the yob’s mates, who were brandishing sticks, closed in on him. But instead of reassuring him that officers were on their way, the 999 operator insisted Mr Harvey answered a string of standard, computer-generated questions – and issued him with the warning.

Mr Harvey said: “I expected to be thoroughly supported by the police as a civilian and not rebuked.” By the time police turned up Mr Harvey had reluctantly let the vandal go. Mr Harvey, from Rusthall, had caught the youngster wrecking the pitch at Linden Park Cricket Club last Wednesday just before 9pm. The groundsman and first team captain, was stunned by the 999 operator asking for details including his name and address and for telling him “You’re sounding rather aggressive.”



Mr Harvey said: “I was expecting a response car immediately. I had restrained someone in the act of vandalism and it’s ‘I must warn you, you are leaving yourself open to an assault charge’. I told her ‘You’d better be quick, there are 12 of them. I might be one of your statistics’. She was reading screen prompts and insisting I gave my name and address and I said ‘With 12 kids in front of me?’ That sort of thing has to be put by the wayside. I could have been in the morgue by now.” The life-long cricketer admitted he sounded aggressive. He said: “I was having to be verbally aggressive because I was standing my corner and having to use a lot of bravado.

“I didn’t touch him, but I had him by a firm grip. I was being jostled. You’d be writing a piece about me being stabbed, so I let them go. By then I’d cut the operator off.” Police arrived 25 minutes later said Mr Harvey, who made an official complaint to police the next morning. Within days he received a telephone apology from Inspector Tony Cannon. Control centre chief inspector Simon Black apologised and said: “The call taker who spoke with Mr Harvey acted correctly in the advice she gave but has been advised she could have shown a little more empathy to Mr Harvey’s situation.”