YouTube has a lot to answer for

Data released under the Freedom of Information Act has shown that the emergency services attended 2,835 incidents in 2017 related to pranksters filming a dangerous stunt to put onto the online media platform YouTube.

The pranks include riding on the top of railway carriages and on the top of lifts as they descend low rise lift shafts and carrying out fake robberies. One of the more famous pranks was carried out by 22 year old Jay Swinger from the Midlands who cemented his head inside a microwave oven in December last year. It took five men from the fire brigade about an hour to free him.

Prank sites are big business on YouTube but police and other first response services are fed up with attending incidents which makes personnel unavailable for genuine accidents and emergencies.

The police are also getting tough with the pranksters; in 2016 four men from YouTube's Trollstation were jailed for carrying out a fake robbery at the National Portrait Gallery in London.