A woman dialled 999 to tell police officers her “a** is on fire” after eating a chicken korma over the festive period.

A woman dialled 999 to tell police officers her "a** is on fire" after eating a chicken korma over the festive period.

The unnamed woman called Cambridgeshire police after suffering the consequences of a spicy curry and officers have released the audio online.

During the call, made at the busiest time of the year for handlers, the woman demands to see paramedics after fears she could be on the toilet for hours.

Mike Branston, superintendent, said: "We need people to think before they call us and only dial 999 in a genuine emergency.

"Misuse use of our 999 service could cause delay in us answering the phone to genuine emergencies and could even lead to the arrest of the hoax caller and even a prison sentence."

The news comes after a man was jailed for phoning Cambs cops multiple times just to belch down the line to the busy call handlers.

Twenty eight-year-old Rhys Pilott, of Crown Street, Peterborough, was sentenced to 24 weeks in prison following a hearing in November.

He admitted causing a public nuisance after making 13 nuisance calls on one occasion and 19 on the second earlier this year.

During the week before Christmas last year, the constabulary received 4,083 calls into its central demand hub, ranging from crime reports to time-wasting hoax calls.

In November this year, there were 58 recorded individual hoax callers, but the actual figure is expected to be much higher.

This is because the figure does not account for repeat callers who are known to ring up to 50 times in one evening.

One caller decided to dial 999 to let operators know she had lost her bank card and another to let operators know this his bins hadn't been collected.

Superintendent Branston added: "It was only a few months ago that a regular hoax caller was sentenced to six months in prison.

"We're urging people to think carefully about whether to call 999, 101 or another organisation if the issue isn't a policing matter.

"If people would prefer to report non-emergency situations online then this can be done on our website via a form or a live web chat function."

To report non-emergencies online visit www.cambs.police.uk/report