A man whose 12-year-old daughter has been receiving death threats has been told by Barnet police they are too busy to investigate the matter.

Alan Hedges, 41, of Kings Drive, Edgware, said his daughter Jessica received a barrage of 20 abusive calls within days, one of which simply told her, you're dead'.

The girl's phone had been called between Wednesday and Saturday morning last week, with many of the calls made either during the school day, throughout the night and even once while her dad was in Colindale police station reporting the crime.

Mr Hedges said: "I asked him why he was phoning my daughter but he just told me to f*** off and called me a bloody liar.

"He phoned 20 times, he even told my daughter that she was going to die. It's not a wrong number - if you call a few times, okay, but 20 times - that's no mistake."

Mr Hedges said he was angered by the police's lack of concern, adding: "The police said they had sent me a letter about it - that's a load of rubbish, they didn't send me anything. That was last Thursday, and then they said they would be in contact, and they weren't.

"I have the telephone number here of the perpetrator, but they haven't contacted him either, they say they are busy.

"The harassment stopped the morning I reported it to the police Thursday, the last time he called was while we were in the police station. I went mad. It's hard, I have to protect my kids from perverts out there but how can I when the police won't do anything?

"I'm probably not unlike most fathers when I say if I could find him I would have knocked the hell out of him, but then I would have got into trouble."

A Barnet police spokeswoman said: "Sadly, owing to the nature of this allegation it would be highly unlikely to identify the person responsible for the calls made to the victim.

"We could possibly identify the phone and who it is registered to if it is a contract phone. Unfortunately, the majority of phones in the UK are pre-paid phones which are not registered. It is not in the public interest to spend time and resources on a full investigation however if more information comes to light any investigation can be reopened."