NORTH Yorkshire police was under renewed fire today from people unhappy at their response to calls for help.

The Evening Press reported yesterday how members of the public are being forced to hang on the telephone in order to have their reports of non-emergency crimes answered.

Today another woman came forward to complain about the issue.

Sally Rowlinson, of Tang Hall, said: "I made four calls to the police over a period of 25 minutes on Saturday night, and each time waiting until the phone just rang off, and still didn't get through."

Mrs Rowlinson said that a group of young children were "causing chaos" on her road on Saturday evening.

"There was a group of kids on the roof of our car-port, and we wanted the police to come and do something about it. We wanted it dealing with but that, to me, is not an emergency. But now it seems the only time you can get your call answered is to dial 999."

Mrs Rowlinson said the police lack of response was more upsetting than the initial incident.

"It ruined my night, I could have dealt with the kids, but the police should be there to help and they weren't."

Nobody could be reached for comment at North Yorkshire police today. Yesterday a spokesman admitted that 15 minutes was not an unusual waiting time for a non-urgent crime report, and the call centre was not responding well to the volume of calls.

Updated: 10:39 Tuesday, July 01, 2003