There's punishment to fit the rhyme for 999 rapper

Police have appealed for the public's help in catching a nuisance caller who has telephoned the 999 emergency number more than 3,000 times to sing rap songs to the call-handlers.

The unknown rapper, who also preaches and prays during the calls, has been ringing up to 10 times a day since January 2009.

It has cost Greater Manchester Police an estimated £1,000 a month to deal with his relentless calls and they say the time they have to spend listening to him means that other emergency calls are not being answered as quickly as they should be.

In the past three months he has called the force 715 times. The call handlers are obliged to listen for at least two to three minutes before hanging-up incase the man does make an emergency request. Police have attempted to frustrate him by identifying and blocking at least 60 mobile phone sim cards, but he has simply bought new unregistered phones and continued.

Superintendent Karan Lee, head of call handling, said: "At busy times the line can be blocked by his calls, which means people with a genuine emergency cannot get through. We feel incredibly frustrated when this happens."

Working with mobile phone operators, police have managed to establish that the man, who has a heavy Jamaican accent, has made most of his calls from the Moss Side or Old Trafford Areas. During one of the calls he appears to shout out the postcodes of those areas.

Three audio clips released yesterday amount to about nine minutes of rapping and chanting. One rap sung in Jamaican patois includes the lyrics: "Who makes the decision / You or me / Who makes the decision / Mummy and Daddy."

Supt Lee added: "Nuisance calls are no laughing matter. I do not know what motivates this man to keep calling, but it is not funny when we cannot respond to a real emergency and if anyone does know who is responsible, I would urge them in the strongest possible terms to come forward.

"We need to stop this man's time-wasting calls before someone's life is put in jeopardy."

The man calls at all hours of the day and night. Jason Unsworth, a call handling manager, said: "You can never guess when this man is going to call up, and that's part of the problem. He can be on the phone for several minutes.

"He is causing us a big problem because of the sheer volume of calls he makes and the time wasted dealing with him."