We were moved and saddened by the Channel 4 programme “999 What’s Your Emergency” which was aired on Thursday the 21st of July 2016, featuring Stuart, who was being targeted and hounded because of his deafness.

Although he was eventually able to move home to a safer area nearer family and friends with the help of Social Services, it was disappointing to see that the Police did not attend with a Sign Language Interpreter, and instructed him to call 999 if he had further trouble – something Stuart, being Deaf, is unable to do.

So what is open to Deaf people in an emergency?

Providing you have a mobile phone, you can use the facility of an emergency text service - the user registers their number first. The only issues are if there is a poor signal, the fact that it takes quite a number of minutes to process the text, and there is no facility to send photos (of a complicated road name, for example).

See website www.emergencysms.org.uk for more information.