KEY POINTS
- Essex Police visited Steve Wood’s home after being alerted to “the sound of a female’s screams”.
- Instead, they found three-year-old Freddie, a parrot, was the culprit.
- Wood, a retired policeman, praised the officers for their response and said he had “no bad feelings” towards them.
British police were dispatched to conduct a welfare check after being alerted to “the sound of a female’s screams”, only to find a noisy parrot was the culprit.
Steve Wood, a 54-year-old retired policeman who owns 22 parrots, on Tuesday received a knock on his door from officers of the Essex force after they received a call from a concerned member of the public.
But the screams were actually coming from Freddie, his three-year-old yellow-naped Amazon parrot.
“I thought, ‘Oh my God what have I done?’,” Mr Wood told the BBC on Friday.
A yellow-naped Amazon parrot. Source: Getty / VW Pics/Universal Images Group
He told the British public broadcaster that he opened the door to two laughing police offers who he said told him: “Don’t worry mate, I think we’ve got this one sussed.”
When he asked “What have I done?”, the police officers replied that they had received a report that a woman in his house was “screaming for help” and they had “come to check everything is OK”.
He praised the officers, saying they had done the right thing and that he had “no bad feelings” toward them.
In a separate interview with EssexLive on Thursday, Wood said his parrots had been moved to a different room in his house and were “more noisy than usual”, and a passerby had walked past and assumed a woman was in trouble.
He told the media outlet he was “never worried” but said it was a “what the f*** moment”.
In a video Wood filmed and shared on social media, he walks to the door saying “A concerned neighbour has been passing by saying there is screaming coming from my house — a woman screaming for help”.
He then opens the door to two laughing police officers and says: “This has made my year, thank you very much”.
In a statement to the BBC, Essex Police said a “member of the public” had reported “the sound of a female’s screams” early on Tuesday afternoon.
“Officers attended to conduct a welfare check, but upon arrival discovered the noise was in fact caused by a number of parrots inside a property,” a spokesman said, according to the BBC.
“Officers engaged with a member of the public at the property and we thank him for his understanding and patience.”
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