CHILDREN aged under 10 were uncovered as the hoax callers who had cost the taxpayer £250,0000 - after they fell into a CCTV trap.

A joint operation was set up between police, the fire service and Housing Pendle after around 70 hoax emergency calls were made from the same telephone box in Colne.

A covert CCTV camera was placed near the box, catching the four children making the calls on their way to and from school.

But because they are all under 10, meaning they are below the legal age of criminal responsibility, they cannot be taken to court.

But PC David Richardson, of the Multi-Agency Problem Solving (MAPS) team, said the children would have to give up a lot of their summer holiday from school to learn about the consequences of their actions.

They will go before the MAPS team's group intervention panel, where firefighters, police and paramedics will work with them to stop them offending again.

PC Richardson said: "They are under 10, but because of that we can't reveal exactly how old they are.

"But just because we can't prosecute them, it doesn't mean we can't do something to stop this happening again.

"The MAPS team was important in catching them in the first place, because it involves police, the fire service and the council as well as others all in the same office so we could easily put all our hoax call figures together and see the pattern.

"But that's not where it ends because we can do an all sorts of work with very young offenders and their parents to move them away from crime - we will be giving then the hard word' and they will definitely regret having made the calls when they have to give up their holiday days.

"It is important to step in early and stop children becoming criminals, especially when it involves hoax calls because they really do cost lives - and money.

"Each call out to a house fire costs the fire and rescue service £1,000, and stops them getting to real emergencies where lives are in danger."

The £250,000 value is made up of the cost in firefighters attending the incidents.