Police investigating an incident at an Aberdeen supermarket were sent to the wrong supermarket – 150 miles away from where it had taken place.
Police Scotland’s control room closures were under fire again last night after officers were sent to Tesco on Great Western Road in Glasgow instead of the store in Aberdeen.
The error meant officers only arrived at the correct store to investigate a damaged door almost three and a half hours after the initial call was made.
The Aberdeen call centre was closed at the end of last month as part of a controversial move to cut costs and emergency calls from the city are now handled in Dundee.
The police were criticised last month when there was confusion about the location of a crash in Charleston.
Last night, north-east Labour MSP, Lewis MacDonald, called on the Scottish Government to reconsider the closure.
He said: “I hope the next time there’s an opportunity for the Scottish Government to think again about what the right way is to deliver this service, they recognise that a single system for the whole of Scotland doesn’t work, carries a lot of risks and is really a false economy.
“This tells us that the impact of police cuts is serious and concerning.
“If a mistake can be made in dealing with a routine call of this kind, you can imagine just how much distress this could cause when the caller is a witness to something really serious.”
The police have confirmed that they will hold an investigation to determine what caused the mistake.
Superintendent Matt Richards said: “A call was received at around 5.30am on Monday morning (April 3, 2017) in relation to damage caused to a door on Great Western Road which had taken place overnight. The call was graded appropriately based on the initial information provided and allocated to officers.
“After receiving further information about the location of the store, officers in Aberdeen were in attendance by 8.50am that morning. Inquiries into the incident are currently ongoing.”
