Police thought man was joking when he said his girlfriend was being raped in front of him

Police thought a man was joking when he called them in a panic to report his girlfriend being raped.

The 26-year-old caller was camping with his girlfriend in a campsite near Bonn, Germany, in April this year when the rapist entered their tent and threatened them with a machete.

In what was a horrific attack, the stranger then dragged his 23-year-old girlfriend a few yards away at the Siegaue Nature Reserve and raped her, while her boyfriend frantically called police.

But the female officer who answered the phone nonchalantly said: ‘Hmm. Where exactly is this rape happening?’

After he hung up the phone, he waited – but officers never arrived.

Following the attack, the man picked up his girlfriend and started walking with her along a main road looking for help.

He then called police a second time – but again, officers seemed to dismiss his complaint.

‘You are not messing with me, I hope?’ they asked.

It was almost 30 minutes before police arrived and the victim was finally taken to hospital, where a medical examination confirmed she had been raped.

The photofit released by police of the attacker (Picture: CEN)

Frank Piontek, a spokesman for Bonn Police, conceded that the ‘incoming official in the control centre, after our findings, did not initially correctly categorise the circumstances of the first call and reacted inappropriately in her language’.

The second call was also handed incorrectly, he added, but said that they have launched a major review of their procedures.

The attacker, a 31-year-old Ghanaian asylum seeker, was arrested in Siegburg after a walker recognised him from a police photofit picture.

DNA evidence then linked him with the rape, and a CD player he stole from the tent was found at his refugee centre.