Boy, seven, calls police after not being allowed out to play during lockdown

A seven-year-old undergoing 12 weeks of isolation called the police on his mother for not letting him out to play.

Alfie Bell is in the highest risk category for coronavirus due to complex health issues, so he and his mother Stephanie are facing three months of self-isolation in Fallin, Stirling.

The primary school pupil has Crohn’s disease and is immunosuppressed.

He normally receives injections every week to guard against infection as even catching chickenpox could prove fatal.

Alfie decided the restrictions were too much and called 999 from his room to report his mother to the police.

Posting on social media about the surprise call, she joked they were “failing miserably at isolation”.

She told the PA news agency: “It’s only me and my son in the house and we are kind of getting a bit sick of each other’s company.

“He got up on Thursday and said ‘I’m going to the park’ and he was going to see his friends. I said: ‘No, you’re not going anywhere, there’s a bad bug outside and you can’t go out’.

“We had a full-scale argument, he was standing and shouting, and said he was going to go up the stairs.

“Five or six minutes later he came back down and then I heard this almighty bang at the door.

“I got up and there were two policemen standing in the garden.

“They were like: ‘What’s happening here, what’s wrong?’ and I said: ‘You tell me, you’re at my door’.”

The officer said they had a missed call from a mobile number registered to her address and were sent out.

She said: “I shouted him and he ran up the stairs. When I asked why he called them, he said: ‘So you can go to the jail because you’re not letting me out to play’.

“What’s happened is he attempted to phone the police because I wasn’t letting him out to play. The phone has been temporarily confiscated.”

The child health and social care student said her son had earlier taken to sitting on a chair looking out the window since he missed seeing people but locals have rallied round, including handing in craft material so he can play noughts and crosses through the window.

A Police Scotland spokesman said: “Officers performed a welfare check at an address in Stirling around 4.50pm on Thursday, March 26, following an abandoned emergency call.”