A prolific caller who repeatedly contacted Lancashire Constabulary has been jailed.
Gary Thomson, 44, of Mosley Street, Blackburn, was issued with a Criminal Behaviour Order (CBO) on the 29th January 2025 for making 67 calls to the Force Control Room over a three-month period in 2024.
The conditions of the CBO prohibited Thomson from contacting Lancashire Constabulary, unless for a genuine reason or emergency.
On 4th February 2025, Thomson was arrested on suspicion of breach of his criminal behaviour order after calling the force ten times over a three-day period. He was charged and pleaded guilty at Blackburn Magistrates Court on 5th February 2025, where he was sentenced to 34 weeks in prison.
Blackburn with Darwen Neighbourhood Insp Kathryn McIntyre said, “The behaviour of Thomson meant that our phone lines and resources were being taken up and this prevented victims getting through to us in their time of need.
“This is a serious matter, and the sentence issued reflects this. We are here to help and respond to people who genuinely need our services, and people who are wasting our time with this behaviour could lead to someone being seriously injured or killed.”
Whilst Thomson was rightly apprehended, convicted and jailed it raises questions as to why similar action has not been taken against a Lancashire man who has wasted more police time and resources than, very arguably, any other person in the country.
Calls logs and crime database entries disclosed in civil proceedings currently ongoing against Lancashire Constabulary (read more here) show that Paul Ponting, 55, of Ormskirk, West Lancashire has made thousands of contacts with the force over the past seven years, either by phone or email. He is a prolific and vexatious complainer.
In July and August, 2023, West Yorkshire Police disclosed that Ponting, also widely known as ‘The Ormskirk Vigilante‘, had made 120 contacts with the force in that short period. A number of those calls had to be terminated by WYP officers as Ponting became abusive. Surprisingly, they took no civil or criminal action against him, even on the clearest of evidence.
Even more surprisingly, given the comments of Inspector McIntyre in the recent Thomson case, is why her neighbourhood policing contemporary in Preston, Inspector Iain Carr, who has the full time job of first line monitoring of all Ponting’s contacts with the force, has not taken similar action.
Via Lancs press office, a statement has been requested of Superintendent Gary Crowe, the Force’s Operations Manager, to whom, along with the Force Solicitor, Sharon Cottam, Insp Carr reports, regarding the failure to act against Paul Ponting and, thus, preserve precious police time and resources from this prolific, and malicious, time-waster.
Ponting is presently the subject of a permanent injunction granted to Lancashire Constabulary, by a circuit judge, following a five day county court hearing in March, 2020 (read full judgment here). It restricts him making derogatory posts on social media and his UK Corrupt Police website about the force’s officers or otherwise harassing them.
A number of breaches of that injunction have been readily identified by Neil Wilby Media, two of them that could very fairly be characterised as serious, and Lancs Police has been asked to disclose, via a Freedom of Information Act request, on how many occasions has legal action been taken against Ponting over those breaches, which, of course, amount to a contempt of court with a maximum punishment of a two-year prison sentence.
Doubts have also been raised as to whether Ponting actually paid over to Lancs the £30,000 costs order that was made against him by the judge at the conclusion of the county court case. In that same FOIA request (read here), the force has been asked to confirm the date the payment was made to them.
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Page last updated: Tuesday 25th February, 2025 at 08h15
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