A CROWN court judge has expressed concerns about the length of time taken to deal with an emergency call from a woman who had been attacked in the early hours of the morning.

Judge Timothy Nash's remarks came at the end of the trial of a 24-year-old man accused of sexually assaulting the woman last December in a subway in the Canterbury city centre.

The alarm was raised after the woman ran for help to a delivery driver but her attacker fled and a man wasn't arrested until much later when the victim thought she recognised him in Canterbury.

Dean Richards, from Canterbury, went on trial but was acquitted and discharged. His lawyer raised identity issues during the trial in which Mr Richards didn't give evidence.

After the trial Judge Nash said he was increasingly disturbed about the present procedure for 999 calls which went to a call centre and the length of time they took.

During the trial the jury heard a recording of the 999 call and the operator could clearly be heard tapping the information into a computer as the distressed woman gave her account.

"I have listened to calls that take four or five times the length of time a call would otherwise take because somebody is inputting a computer the other end so that it can be emailed to the particular police station.

"I don't know what other procedure is in place but I am concerned because if I were to ring up and say I'd been stabbed there'd be a long gap of several seconds while this woman clicked out 'I have been stabbed' and if I added the words 'I am bleeding profusely from my carotid artery, another three or four minutes would go by.

"Then I would be asked how to spell carotid or profusely and then I'd be asked another question, but I wouldn't reply because I'd be dead.

"That's an extreme example but I wonder where we're going," added Judge Nash.