A 999 call about killing a “poisonous” spider prompted police to issue a warning about time-wasting on their emergency line.

"It's not very often we get calls from people confessing a murder to us," Cambridgeshire Police posted on social media.

"However this was most certainly not an appropriate use of our 999 emergency line.

"Next time you find a spider crawling around your house, feel free to deal with it yourself and leave us out of it. We are busy enough as it is! #MakeTheRightCall"

The caller had dialled 999 at 3am saying there was "a spider crawling on their face".

They informed the operator that they had killed it before putting the phone down.

The caller said: "I was woken up at 3 o'clock this morning due to a spider crawling on my face.

"The spider was bright green and looked poisonous so I decided to kill it. Goodbye."

The post by police on Facebook led to nearly 50 comments and several shares.

One person commented: "The mind boggles at such a dreadful waste of police time."

While another added: "Funny but not funny to waste public services resources on idiotic comments."