How To: Report Dumped Rubbish or Damage to a Heritage Site
An article I wrote which details how to report damage or litter at prehistoric sites that you may find as you work your way through the sites on TMA. In short:
1. Take lots of photos.
2. Take 5 minutes to briefly write down the following:
- date
- site name
- site location (an OS ref will do)
- type of crime
- extent of crime
3. Ring the police on 999 if its happening right now and on 101 if its already happened. You do not have to give your name.
While I agree with most of the advice, I would suggest only use 101 instead of 999. The latter is intended for emergency use only.
(from Wikipedia):
999 is used to contact the emergency services upon witnessing or being involved in an emergency. In the United Kingdom, the numbers 999 and 112 both connect to the same service, and there is no priority or charge for either of them.
An emergency can be:
A person in immediate danger of injury or whose life is at risk
Suspicion that a crime is in progress
Structure on fire
Another serious incident which needs immediate emergency service attendance
Illegal fly-tipping, while abhorrent, is not, IMHO life-threatening and to use 999 to report such activity may be deemed inappropriate by the emergency service
You actually quote "Suspicion that a crime is in progress" as a reason to call 999...
You may not think that illegal flytipping is a worthy enough crime, but it is a crime nonetheless. The article and advice were both run past the head of ARCH before publishing and he advised us that people should call 999 if the crime was being committed at that moment.
If i saw someone damaging an ancient site, they'd be needing to call 999 on me for what i'd do to them, I don't advise stopping someone yourself but Juamei's right it's certainly a 999 call everytime, use 101 and you might as well put the phone away and just shout the good it would do you, 999 everytime.