British Telecom has teamed up with the fire brigade to stamp out the number of hoax 999 calls made from their payphones.

Greater Manchester came out as the second biggest blackspot for BT phone pranksters, registering 5,885 calls last year. Only Greater London was higher.

A campaign has now been launched ahead of the half-term holiday to educate the culprits against their life-threatening actions.

Paul Hendron, director of BT Payphones, said: "People who make hoax calls must be made to realise that their actions endanger the lives of people who have a real emergency and are also against the law."

BT will be monitoring individual phone boxes most frequently used to make hoax calls. Nationally, nearly half of the 2.6 million emergency calls made from BT payphones last year were hoaxes.

Sir Graham Meldrum, HM Chief Inspector of Fire Services, said: "Some young people may think that hoax calling is a good dare or a fun game - in reality it can cost lives."

The campaign offers information and teaching aids about emergency hoax calls which can be downloaded from a dedicated website: www.bt.com/hoaxcalls