A man got drunk and called police claiming he’d been sold human flesh by his local supermarket.

The man from Openshaw told the call handler the vacuum-packed lamb shank he’d picked up for tea looked strange and tasted odd when he cooked it.

Inspector Shan Nasim, of GMP Manchester East, says the man rang the police control room just after 5pm on Monday and asked someone to come and see the suspicious meat.

When officers called him back, he told them he’d eaten half of it anyway because he was hungry and “couldn’t wait any longer”.

It’s not the first time in recent weeks police have been taken away from their duties because people have got drunk and wasted police resources.

Earlier in November, staff at a hotel in Blackley were given a shock after another man turned up wearing only his underwear and shoes.

He was extremely drunk and didn’t even have a room booked.

Inspector Nasim said: “We were called at 7.25am to the hotel on Middleton Road as the man was refusing to leave.

“He wasn’t aggressive, but was clearly disorientated and didn’t have any idea how he had got there. Officers then had to spend time trying to identify him and find out where he was staying.”

It turned out the man was from out of town but police managed to trace his friend.

Inspector Nasim added: “It took two hours to close that incident down and took up two police officers.

“The lamb shank call was closed in an hour but we still had to send officers down there after to speak to him about wasting police time.

“Calls like this are replicated more and more throughout December when people start to drink more towards Christmas.

“We also get people ringing us up with trivial things that don’t need a police response.

“I’d just urge people to be responsible when they go out drinking over the Christmas period and remember wasting police time can be an offence.”

In October a dad dialled 999 from his home in Gorton to report his pregnant daughter for smoking .

In the same month a man called police in the early hours of the morning to beg firefighters to rescue his toy helicopter .

The caller explained how the aircraft had crashed on top of Asda Pendlebury in Salford, and that he urgently needed their help getting it down.

The operator told the man he should wait until the supermarket reopened later that day.

Also in October, a lap dancer rang police to get her wages after she was thrown out of her club for being drunk.

In another incident a takeaway customer called 999 and threatened to ‘smash up’ a pizza parlour in a row about toppings.