A JUDGE has ordered an investigation into a Kent Police civilian worker’s response to a 999 call.

The investigation follows a trial of a 42-year-old woman involved in a bust up in a nightclub in Ramsgate last November.

One of the victims made an emergency call to police asking for help, Canterbury Crown Court was told.

The tape of the conversation was played to the jury - who later found Vicky Sykes, of Vale Road, Ramsgate guilty of two assaults. She will be sentenced later.

But after the verdicts, Judge Timothy Nash criticised the manner the civilian worker had spoken to the victims.

He said: "She clearly wasn’t a police officer. One appreciates that late at night at the end of a shift an operator at the end of a 999 call, faced with hysterical girls, she may find it difficult to deal with them.

"But it is that operator’s job to do so and making sarcastic remarks is a very serious reflection on the Kent Constabulary.

"Anybody listening to that (999 call) would not have been terribly impressed or these young girls being terribly encouraged.

"I wish this matter to be investigated because unless this sort of conduct is passed on, the system doesn’t improve."

The judge told the jury that his comments had "come from the heart" because of a similar experience five years ago.

He added: "I had to make a 999 call from Folkestone and I was treated with arrogance and rudeness by some young girl."

The judge said it had been in marked contrast to another emergency call he had made in December in Dover.

"This operator was a police officer and he appreciated that it was desperately difficult for a relative stranger to know precisely where he was.

"But within 15 seconds he had located my position. He was charming, efficient, understanding and above all courteous and he didn’t know who I was because as you know we don’t say who we are."

The court heard that Sykes had attended an engagement party for her daughter at the Compass Club when she became involved in a row with two sisters.

The judge later ordered the police to investigate whether the club should retain its licence.

Judge Nash said: "Far too much was consumed by a large number of people at this club, I suspect. That seems to be the order of the day.

"I can’t help thinking if those who were so condemnatory of smoking in public also took the trouble to put up notices in public places saying: 'Violence will most certainly result in immediate custodial sentences' there would be much less of it."

The case was adjourned until August 22.