Did you know you can report crimes to North Yorkshire Police by text?

The free service is available to everyone with a mobile phone, but aimed at people with hearing or speech impairments, and anyone who is unable to speak during an incident.

The emergency SMS text message service has been relaunched by North Yorkshire Police following a national rollout some years ago, and requires users to first register their phones.

Once that is done, an emergency message can be sent which goes directly to the Force Control Room, and is dealt with by operators there. The FCR will then respond asking for any further information, and advise the message has been received.

Jane Larkin, FCR manager, said nationally, dozens of 999 texts were received daily, but it was not possible to confirm how many had been received locally by North Yorkshire Police.

She urged residents to register their phones, in a process which only takes minutes,

Jane said: "The message arrives with us via a relay system, where the information is securely and confidentially passed between ourselves and the caller. This allows us to gather all the information we need to determine what assistance is required by the caller and dispatch the relevant police response.

"We are fully committed to ensuring that contacting the police is quick, easy and convenient for everyone, so this system is a vital life line to those who may find making voice calls difficult. It’s well worth signing up for the service, so you are already registered if an emergency should ever happen."

Jane said the emergency SMS service should be used to contact police "when there is a genuine emergency, such as a threat to life or if a crime is taking place right now", and texts should include the name of the service needed, and as many precise details as possible.

For example: Police. Man breaking into a car outside of Everyman cinema, Blossom Street, York YO24

To access the service

-Text the word ‘register’ to 999.

-You should receive an automatic text response which contains some information about the service. If not, check with your provider that they support the service

-Once you have read the information, reply to the message by texting ‘Yes’ back.

-You’ll then receive a ‘success’ response, confirming that your mobile is now registered.

-If you change your phone number, you need to register the new number with the service again.