COASTGUARDS wasted 28 man-hours searching for a person stranded on cliffs in west Dorset – before discovering the emergency calls had come from hoaxers.

Officers from West Bay Coastguard were sent to Burton Cliffs on Friday, along with the Coastguard helicopter – before police informed rescuers that the telephone number the emergency calls came from was known for carrying out hoax calls.

West Bay Coastguard were unable to help colleagues rescue a man who was trapped in mud for three-and-a-half hours at Golden Cap, because of the hoax call.

At just after 5.30pm on Friday, emergency services received multiple 999 calls from a man who may have been at risk on the cliffs.

Jake Lanning, rescue officer at West Bay Coastguard, said: “The calls all came from the same mobile phone and while the original call gave the Coastguard some limited information, all subsequent calls were silent, or were hung up when the Coastguard tried to re-call the phone number."

Seven rescue officers from the West Bay team quickly responded to the station, including the team’s deputy station officer (DSO).

Search teams were sent out and the entire cliff top was searched between Hive Beach and West Bay, but nothing was found.

Mr Lanning added: “During the search, Solent Coastguard received additional 999 calls from the same phone indicating that the casualty was now located on the beach.

“It was now dark, the tide was high and the beach was cut off in several area’s by recent cliff falls.

“As such, it was deemed too dangerous to put search teams on the beach in these conditions and so the decision was made by Solent to launch Rescue Helicopter 106 from Portland to conduct a FLIR (Forward Looking Infra Red) search.  “Information was then received from Dorset Police that the phone number used to make the calls was known to them as being one associated with hoax calls to the emergency services.

“As the Rescue Helicopter was now on scene, a full night time search was made to make sure that there were no casualties at risk in the area after-which all Coastguard assets were then stood down to return to station.”

A total of seven coastguard rescue offers spent a combined 28 hours searching the area, as well as a Coastguard rescue vehicle and the Coastguard helicopter and its crew.

“It is worth noting that while the above assets were dealing with this possible hoax, our flank team over at Lyme Regis Coastguard were dealing with a very difficult mud rescue in the dark under the cliffs near Golden Cap and we were prevented from assisting them due to this tasking,” added Mr Lanning.

“The Coastguard will always respond to persons who might be at risk and we have no issues at all at being called out to a false alarms as we would rather be safe than sorry. However deliberate hoax calls can put lives at risk and will be dealt with most severely by the police.”