A drunken man threatened to kill and sexually abuse police officers during a string of hoax 999 calls, a court was told.

Nigel Geoffrey Brown, 39, bombarded emergency telephone operators with nuisance calls while in a “drunken rage”, it was alleged in papers handed to Bradford Magistrates on Tuesday.

Sometimes he would ring “just for a chat” from call boxes in Keighley, Steeton, Saltaire, Silsden and Haworth, but later became abusive, magistrates were told.

Brown, of Balcony Terrace, Cross Roads, was often found by police in a drunken state and arrested for being a public nuisance.

Police arrested him in May last year after he made several 999 calls, saying that if police were sent they “would be killed” and that anyone sent to help him would be “sexually abused”.

In another incident, he reported himself for stealing from Morrisons, in Keighley.

Police found him downing a bottle of strong spirits inside the store and when asked to leave, he became abusive.

There was no evidence he had stolen the spirits but he was fined £100 for being drunk and disorderly.

In all he made calls on 16 separate occasions between May 2007 and October 2008.

Brown was again reported in January last year after sending a Christmas card to a Haworth hotel.

It was abusive and insulting and “full of comments of a sexual nature”, magistrates were told.

He was convicted of threatening behaviour at Bingley Magistrates Court and sentenced to a 12-month community order with supervision.

He has also been convicted of theft and cautioned for carrying an offensive weapon.

Magistrates at Tuesday’s hearing imposed an interim Anti-Social Behaviour Order on Brown and adjourned the case for him to return to court in April.

A police spokesman said: “We take hoax calls very seriously due to the effect it can have on other law-abiding citizens.

“While officers are attending hoax calls, they are prevented from investigating real crimes.”