Listen to Britain's worst 999 hoaxer in action

12:59pm Thursday 3rd April 2008

POLICE have released recordings of calls made by a man from Bolton dubbed the "worst hoaxer in Britain".

The recordings contain three of the 13 hoax calls to emergency services made by David Mason, between October 30, 2006, and February 13, 2007.

In the first call he reports a seven-man brawl has broken out near to his home in Yates Street, Tonge Moor.

Loner, Mason, aged 57, can be heard in the second call referring to himself as "Mr Lewis" and says has seen a youth trying to break into a car.

In the third call, Mason tells of a 58-year-old man who is semi-concious with chest pains in the street. When asked if the man was conscious, he replies "half and half. He's not properly breathing, he's fighting for breath".

On Monday, a judge at Bolton Crown Court jailed Mason for four years.

• Listen to David Mason on tape HERE

The court heard Mason was first convicted at the age of 17 when he was sentenced to detention in a borstal for making false calls about fires.

Since then, he has been convicted 13 times for 49 similar offences.

Mason was caught after a police investigation led officers to his home where three T-Mobile pay-as-you-go phones were discovered with the phone numbers used to make the calls.