THE disclosure that there is now no hiding place for people making bogus mobile phone calls for help to the emergency services will be welcomed by the responsible, law-abiding majority.

For such malicious calls are not just a nuisance and an expensive waste of time and money. People's lives and safety are jeopardised when police, fire and ambulance crews turn out in response to fake alarms when elsewhere someone may be in real need of their help.

And this was shockingly demonstrated only few years ago when a Lancashire child died in a house fire while fire crews were delayed answering a hoax call which reported a fire at a hospital.

Now, dangerous pranksters making false calls on mobiles are having their phones made useless thanks to new technology - as one in East Lancashire found out only this week after reporting a bogus fire in Accrington.

In a rare move, officers at the fire service's control centre contacted the caller's phone company which instantly put the mobile out of action by disconnecting its SIM card. Improved call-tracing technology has already slashed the number of bogus 999 calls made through traditional phones, call boxes and even tariffed mobiles, but, previously, those made from pay-as-you-go ones were untraceable - but no longer.

This is making life safer for everyone and the emergency service's work more free of nuisance, a situation that should also be encouraged by the courts with firm punishment for every offender.