Camilla hears real-life 999 call on visit to police control room

The Queen listened to a real-life 999 call as she toured a police control room to learn about their work tackling domestic abuse.

Camilla put the headphones up to her ear to hear the start of a pre-recorded conversation between a woman who rang in to report she had spotted an ex-partner on her property, and the emergency call handler.

The Queen was visiting the Avon and Somerset Police headquarters in Portishead, Bristol, on Thursday, and was told the force receives 34,000 domestic abuse calls a year.

In the bustling emergency call room, she sat at the control room desk and listened intently to the audio extract and peered at the three large screens in front of her, which showed location mapping and a call guidance script.

Camilla was talked through the process by call handler Jasmine Cox, who played her the start of the message, which is also used for training purposes.

Miss Cox said: “It’s just all about keeping them safe in that situation. It can be extremely stressful and upsetting. It’s about keeping them calm and speaking to them.”

Camilla remarked: “So just keep talking.”

The Queen described the amount of domestic abuse calls received by the force as “horrifying” and added “it’s a lot – far too many”, but praised the team for its work.

“Sometimes people must be very frightened so it must be difficult getting information out of them,” she said.

She added: “It’s fascinating to see it and horrifying how many calls come in.”

She heard how the handlers work to track callers if it is not safe for them to talk, and how they can press 55 while on the line to alert the call handler to this.

Miss Cox told the Queen how she recently received a thank-you note from a woman she helped who was unable to say her address out loud.

Camilla praised her, adding: “My goodness. They’re taking these calls all the time aren’t they? You’re doing a brilliant job.”

No further details were released about the call Camilla listened to.

The Queen was met at the headquarters by Chief Constable Sarah Crew, as well as Superintendent Sharon Baker, a domestic abuse survivor who set up a network to support colleagues also experiencing abuse.

Ms Baker appeared in the ITV documentary Her Majesty The Queen: Behind Closed Doors, which followed Camilla over the course of a year to look at her work in this field.

The Queen has supported survivors of sex attacks and domestic abuse for many years, and it was recently revealed that she herself fought off a man who attacked her on a train when she was a teenager.

Her visit comes amid the ongoing scandal surrounding the King’s brother Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and the continuing revelations emerging from millions of US documents relating to his paedophile friend Jeffrey Epstein.

The Queen also heard harrowing accounts of domestic abuse and coercive control when she sat with a support group for police officers and staff set up by Ms Baker – the first of its kind to be launched in a UK police force.

Camilla described the survivors as “very brave” after they shared their experiences, adding: “You’re getting up and talking about it. That makes a difference. The more people who do that, the more people will listen.”

She told them: “You know you’re not alone.”

Addressing the survivors, she said of domestic abuse: “It can happen to anybody, absolutely anybody. I feel very encouraged that there is a group like this.”

The Queen urged other police forces around the country to follow Avon and Somerset’s lead, praising the support group as “brilliant”.

She added: “I have never met a group like this who is actually getting on doing something… I just hope a lot of other police stations will follow your example. You’ve got to capture a lot of the others.”

Camilla heard about initiatives developed by the force to support survivors, including Project Bright Light which aims to overhaul the way it deals with domestic abuse by opening its doors to a team of academics to conduct an analysis of its processes.

It comes off the back of the pilot Project Bluestone in which academics combed through its approach to rape and serious sexual assault in 2021 to provide recommendations on how to increase charge rates and improve support and engagement with survivors.

The Bluestone model was later rolled out across all forces nationally under the Home Office-funded Operation Soteria.

The Queen has long campaigned to raise awareness about domestic and sexual violence.

The King’s decision to strip the former Duke of York of his honours and titles last year was reported to have been in part influenced by the Queen’s concerns, with Camilla said to have been appalled at Andrew’s association with Epstein, believing the controversy was impacting on her work with sexual abuse victims.

The late Virginia Giuffre, who died by suicide last year, accused Andrew of sexual abuse, saying the duke had sex with her when she was 17 and had been trafficked by Epstein.

The former prince has always vehemently denied the claims.

Fresh allegations against eighth in line to the throne Andrew from the Epstein files also include that a second woman was sent to the UK by Epstein for a sexual encounter with the then-duke, and that Andrew and Epstein asked an exotic dancer for a threesome in the latter’s Florida home.

Thames Valley Police said on Wednesday it has held discussions with specialist prosecutors from the Crown Prosecution Service about allegations that Andrew shared confidential reports from his role as the UK’s trade envoy with sex offender Epstein and “is making progress as quickly as possible”.

On Monday, Buckingham Palace said it would “stand ready to support” the police if approached over the claims, after Thames Valley Police said it was assessing the suggestions of a leak by Andrew.

A spokesman for the Palace added the King had made clear his “profound concern” at allegations relating to Andrew’s conduct and that the monarch and the Queen’s “thoughts and sympathies have been, and remain with, the victims of any and all forms of abuse”.