Queen Camilla hears real-life 999 call on visit to Avon and Somerset Police headquarters
Camilla was visiting the Avon and Somerset Police headquarters to learn about their work tackling domestic abuse
The Queen listened to a real-life 999 call as she toured a police control room to learn about their work tackling domestic abuse
Camilla put the headphones up to her ear to hear the start of a pre-recorded conversation between a woman who rang in to report she had spotted an ex-partner on her property, and the emergency call handler.
The Queen was visiting the Avon and Somerset Police headquarters in Portishead, near Bristol on Thursday, and was told the force receives 34,000 domestic abuse calls a year.
In the bustling emergency call room, she sat at the control room desk and listened intently to the audio extract and peered at the three large screens in front of her, which showed location mapping and a call guidance script.
Camilla was talked through the process by call handler Jasmine Cox who played her the start of the message, which is also used for training purposes.
Miss Cox said: "It's just all about keeping them safe, in that situation. it can be extremely stressful and upsetting. It's about keeping them calm and speaking to them".
Camilla remarked: "So just keep talking"
The Queen described the amount of domestic abuse calls received by the force as "horrifying" and added "it's a lot - far too many", but praised the team for its work.
"Sometimes people must be very frightened so it must be difficult getting information out of them," she said.
She added: "It's fascinating to see it and horrifying how many calls come in."
She heard how the handlers work to track callers if it is not safe for them to talk and how they can press 55 while on the line to alert the call handler to this.
Miss Cox told the Queen how she recently received a thank you note from a woman she helped who was unable to say her address out loud.
Camilla praised her, added: "My goodness. They're taking these calls all the time aren't they? You're doing a brilliant job."
No further details were released about the call Camilla listened to.
The Queen was met at the headquarters by Chief Constable Sarah Crew, as well as Superintendent Sharon Baker, a domestic abuse survivor who set up a network to support colleagues also experiencing abuse.
Ms Baker appeared in the ITV documentary Her Majesty The Queen: Behind Closed Doors, which followed Camilla over the course of a year to look at her work in this field.
The Queen has supported survivors of sex attacks and domestic abuse for many years and it was recently revealed that she fought off a man who attacked her on a train when she was a teenager.
Her visit comes amid the ongoing scandal surrounding the King's brother Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and the continuing revelations emerging from millions of US documents relating to his paedophile friend Jeffrey Epstein.