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EMERGENCY service workers are to be given special legal protection following a huge increase in assaults, abuse and sexual harassment.
The Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Bill, introducing a new offence of common assault against an emergency worker, passed its third reading in the House of Lords yesterday.
It will require courts to treat attacks on these workers as an aggravating factor for sentencing purposes.
Action against sexual assaults was only included in the Bill after a report from paramedics’ union GMB revealed that sexual assaults and abuse on ambulance workers increased by 211 per cent between 2012/13 and 2016/17.
Ambulance workers reported being bitten, stabbed, having blood spat at them by intravenous drug users, having bones broken, attempts to hit them with cars and racist abuse.
GMB organiser Stacey Booth praised ambulance workers for getting the new protections on the statute book.
She said: “It’s now vital that the new law is publicised and properly enforced.”
