The WORST episodes of 999: What's Your Emergency?

#1 - Episode 5

Season 9 - Episode 5 - Aired 7/1/2019

Wiltshire Police launch a murder investigation when two people are stabbed by a stranger. But all may not be as it seems, in a case that raises difficult questions about why people carry knives.

#2 - Housing

Season 13 - Episode 5 - Aired 7/6/2021

#3 - Alcohol & House Parties

Season 13 - Episode 3 - Aired 6/22/2021

This episode reveals the realities of policing home drinking. A family gathering spills into the street and gets out of control. An ambulance crew are in danger at a house party.

#4 - Knife Crime & Murder

Season 8 - Episode 4 - Aired 4/22/2019

Wiltshire Police launch a murder investigation when two people are stabbed by a stranger. But all may not be as it seems, in a case that raises difficult questions about why people carry knives.

#5 - Revenge & Vigilante Justice

Season 13 - Episode 1 - Aired 6/8/2021

South Yorkshire Police reveal what happens when people seek revenge by street justice, from a supermarket brawl to taking a hammer on the rampage, as well as a hit-and-run as payback.

#6 - Children & Parenting

Season 13 - Episode 4 - Aired 6/29/2021

The South Yorkshire Police deal with complex cases of parents living in fear of their own children. In Sheffield, a mother asks for her 15-year-old to be taken into custody after he starts causing damage at their home, and for the second time in three days, the same officers are despatched to a report of a son attacking his father. Elsewhere, a distraught mother is under siege from her violent and aggressive 23-year-old son.

#7 - Time Wasters & the Vulnerable

Season 13 - Episode 2 - Aired 6/15/2021

A look at the challenges South Yorkshire Police face with time-wasting 999 calls and also with helping vulnerable people, including a confused lady who can't find her way home.

#8 - Episode 6

Season 5 - Episode 6 - Aired 12/4/2017

From zero-hours contracts to long working hours, this episode explores how the emergency services deal with issues arising from rising levels of stress and anxiety in the workplace.

#9 - Custody

Season 14 - Episode 3 - Aired 1/31/2022

In Northamptonshire, police custody cells are stretched to breaking point as they have just 62 cells to cater for a population of 700,000. A 67-year-old lady is brought in for drink-driving, and a female detainee decides to strip naked.

#10 - Episode 8

Season 1 - Episode 8 - Aired 11/5/2012

An increasing number of people are calling 999 with non-emergencies and hoax calls that are costing the already stretched emergency services millions and potentially diverting crews from genuine emergencies. This episode focuses on life savers and time wasters, featuring calls to the emergency services about a range of non-emergencies, from culinary injuries to broken light bulbs, as bizarre as they are diverse. But even more serious are the handful of people who abuse the emergency system by making hoax calls in the knowledge that they are potentially diverting an ambulance or fire engine from attending a serious injury or life-threatening situation.

#11 - Drunk Women

Season 14 - Episode 2 - Aired 1/24/2022

Cases of alcohol-related call-outs involving excessive drinking by women. Officers are alerted by a taxi driver to someone who has been drunk and asleep in a gutter, while PCs Brad Phillips and Mike Doggett attend the scene of a mid-evening car crash. Elsewhere, a disturbance in a pub spills out onto the streets, resulting in an arrest for assault and an entire family of young children being forced to go into custody by their mother.

#12 - The Night Shift

Season 14 - Episode 1 - Aired 1/17/2022

South Yorkshire Police work the long nightshift – breaking up fights, rescuing a colleague, nabbing a fuel thief, and attending a possible suicide on a bridge outside Doncaster.

#13 - Episode 9

Season 3 - Episode 9 - Aired 9/1/2016

Exploring the trails and tribulations of coming of age in 2016, and the challenges the emergency services face in dealing with people in the legal and social hinterland between childhood and adulthood.

#14 - Women in Crime

Season 10 - Episode 4 - Aired 2/10/2020

In the past five years, Wiltshire has experienced a 63% increase in offences committed by women. The police try to deal with the female crime wave, as the number of women arrested for drugs offences has more than doubled.

#15 - Episode 4

Season 1 - Episode 4 - Aired 10/8/2012

There is one night when everyone's up for a party: payday. Whether you work a 50-hour week or depend on state benefits, the day that money hits bank accounts across the UK signals the beginning of drink-fuelled celebrations, a time to forget your troubles and blow off some steam. For the call operators at Blackpool's emergency control centres hearing about our payday excesses is a weekly occurrence and money plays a part in many 999 calls, from the serious burglaries to the callers reporting a lack of credit on their mobile phone.

#16 - Episode 2

Season 4 - Episode 2 - Aired 7/31/2017

Over the last decade, incidents of violence perpetrated by young men have risen by 22%. This episode meets the police officers and paramedics in Wiltshire dealing with the consequences.

#17 - Episode 10

Season 3 - Episode 10 - Aired 9/5/2016

PCs Matt Ambrose and Mike Lowe are dispatched to a house in Crewe following reports of a man threatening his ex-partner with a gun. It's down to the PCs to find and lock the male up for the night, despite him resisting arrest.

#18 - Violent Crime & Youth Crime

Season 11 - Episode 3 - Aired 10/19/2020

With resources stretched to breaking point for the police in Northamptonshire, a look at the increasingly violent behaviour of teenage boys, from acid attacks to stabbings.

#19 - Episode 5

Season 1 - Episode 5 - Aired 10/15/2012

This episode focuses on an issue that is keeping the emergency services busier than ever: people's state of mind. A quarter of the UK population will suffer from mental health problems at some time in their lives. And with the number of psychiatric beds falling by 80% in a generation, inevitably the emergency services are dealing with more people with serious mental health problems.

#20 - Episode 4

Season 6 - Episode 4 - Aired 5/10/2018

Cameras go behind the scenes with Wilshire's emergency services to explore the rising use of strong cannabis, related crime and the impact of suspected cannabis psychosis.

#21 - Episode 11

Season 3 - Episode 11 - Aired 9/19/2016

In Nantwich, PC Vicky Howell and PC Greg Greaves pull over a 31-year-old woman suspected of driving under the influence despite being only a couple of streets away from home. After blowing over double the legal limit, she is taken into custody.

#22 - Coronavirus

Season 12 - Episode 4 - Aired 2/1/2021

Early 2020, the start of COVID-19, and South Yorkshire Police face a surge in anxious calls and crimes, from folk fighting over loo rolls to domestic violence and substance abuse.

#23 - Episode 3

Season 6 - Episode 3 - Aired 5/3/2018

The number of people living alone in the UK has doubled in 40 years to a greater number than at any time in our history. With no one else to talk to, people are relying more and more on 999.

#24 - Episode 3

Season 4 - Episode 3 - Aired 8/7/2017

Following criminalisation of once legal highs, crack and heroin are on the up and users and dealers are getting younger as organised gangs flood small local communities with drugs.

#25 - Burglary & Theft

Season 11 - Episode 2 - Aired 10/12/2020

Northamptonshire police officers have their hands full tackling a prolific shoplifter, a burglar making a rooftop protest, a telephone scam, and what looks like a cyber break-in.