A man posing as an emergency officer tricked mothers into thinking their children had been killed in an accident.

Phillip Anton Zillner used social media to stalk mothers before he would call them pretending to be a police officer and say their children had been struck and killed by a truck.

The 37-year-old was filmed on CCTV in South Australia making the evil calls from a phone booth to the Ballarat and Tullamarine mothers, reports 9 news.

One young mum was at work when she received a call from Zillner.

She collapsed to the ground in the office when she was told her two-year-old girl was dead. In reality, she was asleep at childcare.

“I’m Paul Simpson from Emergency Services, your daughter has been hit by a truck and I’m sorry she has passed away,” he said in one of the calls.

In another call he called a mum saying “your daughter has been hit by a truck out front of the school”.

The mum rushed to her daughter’s primary school but arrived to find she was alive and not injured.

But as if that wasn’t enough, Zillner then called the mum’s again later that night to harass them.

After being sentenced, Zillner told the court he was “sorry for what he’s done”.

He will serve 90 more days in jail after already serving 14 months on remand. He will serve a two-year community correction order upon release.

The man who has Tourette’s Syndrome and autism, pleaded guilty in February to three counts of recklessly causing injury, three counts of stalking and two counts of using a carriage service to menace, harass of cause offence.

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