Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Bill

Gareth Johnson Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 20th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

Absolutely, and the point is that it needs the full force of the law. All too often, the victims, who work in our emergency services, and who know this area of the law well, have felt that the full force of the law has not been used.

I have cited some statistics, but this is not just about statistics. Last year, Nurse Sharon Morris was attacked in a mental health unit, and it is worth saying that Unison, the trade union, has found that more than two in every five mental health workers have been attacked in the last year. The effect on Sharon’s life was profound. She said:

"I’m not the same calm but confident woman I was. Personally, I’m feeling vulnerable, and I feel I’m not much use to my family as I am on edge whenever we are around people. I have nightmares and flashbacks. The worst part is seeing my assailant’s face superimposed on my eldest son’s face—they are physically similar—and I couldn’t cope with him hugging me for many weeks. I was off sick for three months, and I’m now seeking redeployment away from patient areas; I get anxious around patients, so I’m currently just doing office work.”

In fact, since she said those words, she has moved on to another area of work. That is one of the problems: these assaults are leading to a serious problem in the recruitment and retention of staff.

[Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)]

I certainly hope the hon. Gentleman gets a Second Reading for his Bill, which should go through unopposed. I support the Bill, but there is so much that needs to be done on it. The example he has just given would not even be covered by it, so a lot of work needs to be done in Committee before it comes back to this Chamber.

[Chris Bryant]

There was a version of the Bill that did include this issue, but somehow or other, by some glitch of computers, it disappeared. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and that goes back to the point I made earlier. The issue is something we want to put right in Committee, and I hope the whole House will want to rectify it.

Members should just listen to what PC Adam Heslop of the British Transport police said. He had his nose broken when he was punched in the face. He had been in many situations where he feared physical assault, but he had never actually been punched. His assailant was given a curfew and ordered to pay court costs of £85 when convicted of actual bodily harm. PC Heslop said:

“I know better than to expect justice from the courts when it comes to police assaults. I think that’s one of the reasons assaults are up.”

That is the problem: if the victims do not feel that there has been justice or that justice has been seen to be done, it seems to the whole of society that people are getting away with these things—as if there is a law of lawlessness when it comes to attacking the police.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)]

I, too, support the Bill. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch) and the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), who rightly made the point that an assault on an emergency worker is not just a simple case of disrespect, but undermines the very fabric of our society. That places such assaults in a category all their own.

The hon. Gentleman also said that lawyers had a part to play, and I hope that, as a lawyer myself, I shall have some sort of contribution to make. During the 20 years or so in which I practised before coming to this place, my experience was that courts generally treated assaults on frontline and emergency workers in a context of aggravation, and that tougher sentences tended to be imposed. Notwithstanding that, it is right for us to put those protections in statute and reassure emergency workers in particular, when they go out to serve us and deal with the public, that we, as a Parliament, a country and a society, are behind them through legal means.

While, as I have said, I fully support the Bill, I hope that the hon. Member for Rhondda will forgive me if I draw the House’s attention to some of my concerns about it. I genuinely want it to complete its passage through both Houses and become law, but I do feel that it needs an awful lot of work. I have a great deal of sympathy for the hon. Gentleman, because I have presented a private Member’s Bill myself, and I know that it is almost impossible for such a Bill to reach this stage in a perfect state, so this is not a criticism. However, it is important for us to get it right now if it is to succeed.

I have to say that when I read the Bill’s long title I winced, because it referred to emergency workers acting in the execution of their duty, whereas the body of the Bill refers to “the exercise of functions”. It is unclear which of those terms will apply to any legislation. If I understand the procedure correctly, the long title cannot be altered at this stage. I hope that that does not hamstring the hon. Gentleman, and I certainly hope that the Bill will not be constrained by incidents in which workers are simply carrying out the execution of their duty. I have witnessed too many occasions on which people charged with assaulting police officers during the execution of their duty have been able to walk because of a technicality—a breach of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, for instance—which means that those officers have not, at that precise moment, been acting in the execution of their duty.

[Chris Bryant]

The hon. Gentleman has made a very fair point. One of the reasons for the difference between (a) and (b) is the fact that the long title was drawn up before the Bill had been written; it was agreed, effectively, on First Reading, and has now been agreed on Second Reading. During the intervening period, a great many people made representations to me about the problem of securing convictions under the tighter definition to which the hon. Gentleman has referred. It is not necessary to change the long title, because it is the main body of the Bill that carries the weight.

[Gareth Johnson]

I certainly hope that that is the case. What is positive about this is the fact that there is a cross-party consensus, and the Government are supporting the Bill. I think that an awful lot of work needs to be done by Government lawyers, and I hope that some of the lawyers in the Ministry of Justice will work closely with the hon. Gentleman to ensure that we have a workable Bill at the end of the process.

I also think that the Bill has problems with the definition of an emergency worker. The hon. Gentleman said he accepted that it did not cover all the medical workers that he wanted it to cover. The overwhelming majority of NHS workers would not be covered as things stand. It has been mentioned that people working in minor injury units will not be covered by the Bill in its present form, and that needs to change. A receptionist working in A&E would be covered, but a nurse working on a ward in a minor or other injuries unit would not. That is an anomaly that must be ironed out, and I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman has acknowledged that.

[Chris Bryant]

We are, in a way, having a Committee stage now. Let me explain how that issue arose. I discussed an original version of the Bill with the very lawyers at the Ministry of Justice whom the hon. Gentleman urged me to talk to. An element was taken out, because we felt that ambulance workers would not be covered, and in the process we lost other workers in the NHS. I have spoken to the Justice Secretary, and he made it clear that we would put that right in Committee.

[Gareth Johnson]

I am very reassured by that. It is excellent news.

It is also important, given that courts generally treat assaults on frontline workers as aggravated offences, for the Bill not to say to the courts, “This is Parliament telling you when you should and should not find an aggravated offence”. The danger is that someone who slipped out of the remit of the Bill could end up with a lesser sentence as a consequence. The courts need to understand that this legislation would be in addition to, not a replacement for, the current law. If they do not do so, people who would currently be treated harshly may not be in the future, because Parliament, by implication, has not included them in the body of the legislation.

Requiring emergency workers to be actively carrying out their functions also creates some problems. For example, a paramedic who was simply standing outside a hospital and was assaulted would not be covered by the Bill. I am sure that that is not the hon. Gentleman’s intention, and what I have said is not meant in any way to be a criticism, but I want the Bill to succeed.

The hon. Gentleman has rightly tried to include people who are off duty. As we know, emergency workers, especially police officers, often step in when they are off duty because they want to help someone out in particular circumstances, and it is absolutely right for them to be covered by the Bill. My fear is that the Bill is drawn too widely, because it simply covers any action that, if done while on duty, would constitute working, so it could even cover driving down a road. However, in a road rage situation, the court must—not can, but must— treat that as an aggravating factor, so that needs to be looked at.

The Bill also covers a number of offences under the Offences Against the Person Act 1861, but it does not refer to the Public Order Act 1986. The hon. Members for Halifax and for Rhondda both mentioned situations in which emergency workers were threatened with a knife. That will not be covered under the Bill, and it needs to be. It is not an assault; it is an affray and comes under the Public Order Act as threatening behaviour. Therefore, the courts would not treat it as an aggravating factor under this Bill.

I appreciate that some of these matters can be ironed out in Committee, and I reiterate that I fully support the principles behind the Bill. I pay tribute to the hon. Members for Rhondda and for Halifax and all those who have assisted with the Bill. It is vital that we get it into statute and working correctly, but it has some serious problems that have not been addressed. I will try to rattle through some of the brief points I want to make, because I am in no way trying to cause problems for the hon. Member for Rhondda in getting the Bill through Second Reading.

I want to highlight the hon. Gentleman’s definition of “emergency worker”, which for some reason does not cover customs officers, who can often put themselves in an emergency situation where they perhaps need the protection that the legislation would give to other emergency workers.

I am pleased that the Bill covers intimate and non-intimate samples. As we know, there have been many instances of police officers and other emergency workers being assaulted and having their lives placed in limbo. I shall never forget a case at City of London magistrates court where a police officer was in tears in the witness box because he had been bitten by somebody and he had just got married but, because tests were still being carried out on him, he was unable to consummate his marriage. He was unable to live a normal family life and he was in tears as a consequence.

The House appreciates that when an assault takes place on an emergency worker, it is not just the individual emergency worker who is affected; very often it is the family members as well. That is why this legislation is vital and it is right to ensure appropriate penalties for failing to give non-intimate samples. We do not want to end up making it better for someone with an infectious disease to refuse to give a sample because they would only get fined under this Bill, whereas if they gave a sample, that would be an aggravating factor and they would go to prison. That, too, needs to be sorted out.

In conclusion, I hope the Bill gets its Second Reading and is not opposed by anybody in this House. It would be a valuable contribution to the criminal justice system. It would give reassurance to emergency workers, who deserve it. It is a Bill worthy of the valiant emergency workers we have in this country.