Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Bill

Holly Lynch Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Friday 27th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)]

It gives me great pleasure to speak on the Report stage of this Bill. It is a particular pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson), who has been a friend of this campaign from the very start. He raised a number of interesting points, and I look forward to hearing Ministers’ response. We have greatly benefited from his legal expertise throughout this process, and I am grateful to him for that. I am grateful to Members across the House who have recognised the role that I have played in initiating this campaign, but it has been a tremendous team effort, and I will thank a number of people on Third Reading.

I rise specifically to speak in support of amendment 3, which would add sexual assault to the list of assault charges in clause 2, so that it would become an aggravating factor within sentencing if sexual assault were inflicted on an emergency service worker. Having started this campaign with the Police Federation following the experience I had with a single-crewed police officer—a tale I have shared in the Chamber on several occasions—one of the deciding factors in broadening the campaign to cover more emergency service workers was having met female paramedics who had been subject to sexual assaults while on duty. That is why I am so keen to see this addition made to the Bill.

A very clear pattern emerged of female paramedics having to deal with male patients who are often under the influence of drugs or alcohol, as we have heard, in towns and city centres and predominantly on Friday and Saturday nights. I am grateful to Stacey Booth, an organiser with GMB—which I must declare is my trade union—from West Yorkshire who introduced me to a number of paramedics who recounted their experiences, which were worryingly similar.

One of those women was Sarah Kelly, who I am delighted has joined us in Parliament this morning, after taking the brave decision to share her story in the hope that it would help us to fix the broken system that has let her down. On some occasions, it was a combination of the patient being under the influence of drugs, alcohol or both, with a diminished capacity to determine right from wrong, and they took advantage of the situation, sexually assaulting a lone female paramedic in the back of an ambulance. On other occasions it was even more sinister: sexual predators, who have fine-tuned this approach, engineer a situation where they are alone in an ambulance with a female paramedic, with the specific aim of sexually assaulting them.

The risk to ambulance staff is heightened because, unlike the police, who have access to a certain degree of information about a person’s previous criminal history prior to attending an incident, the ambulance service does not. I have met female paramedics who have been dispatched to the address of someone who has only recently sexually assaulted them, pending a court appearance, which must be against all safeguarding and legal advice.

Sarah has led the way in Yorkshire, seeking to work with her trade union and her employer, the Yorkshire ambulance service, to implement the necessary changes from a grassroots level—to accurately report and record such attacks, follow up with support and advice in order to secure a conviction and to build up the data required to put protections in place so that unnecessary risks do not have to be taken in future. I commend her efforts. As we have reflected on many times over the course of the Bill’s journey, the reason why we have to go that bit further on protections for emergency service workers is that we are the ones who ask them to run towards danger and persevere with individuals who seek to do them harm, because they simply cannot walk away.

Like other paramedics, Sarah, having been sexually assaulted by the perpetrator, had to continue to persevere with him in the back of the ambulance until they arrived at hospital, first and foremost because he needed medical attention, and she could not walk away or escape him. We owe it to Sarah to make this amendment a reality in law. She is not alone in her experience as a paramedic, nor are paramedics the only emergency service workers to be exposed to this particularly vile manifestation of assault, so I urge all colleagues to lend their support to amendment 3 and add it to the Bill.

I also support amendment 2, to which I have added my name, and I will return more specifically to the hideous act of spitting when I speak to amendments 4, 5 and 6. I am also sympathetic to a great deal of the work done by the hon. Member for Shipley, and I agree with a number of the points that he outlined in his new clauses. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response to the debate.

[Alex Chalk]

It is such a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch). She is a truly passionate defender of the interests of police officers, and she does that with great skill. I pay tribute to her and to the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies).

I have a few observations, building on the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley. In his powerful submission he said that it is important that police officers—I know there are some in the Public Gallery—receive justice, and that that justice is not “a sick joke”. However, we must also ensure that we do not inadvertently replace one sick joke with another.

In my experience as a prosecutor, the biggest injustice for police officers was along the following lines. A police officer attends the scene of a serious robbery, for example, and he or she makes an arrest. During the course of that arrest, the defendant spits at the police officer, in an extremely upsetting and unpleasant incident. The defendant is taken to the police station, where he is subsequently charged with robbery and with assaulting a police constable in the execution of his duty. The case then comes to court, and the defendant says to the prosecutor, through his solicitor, “Alright. I will plead guilty to the robbery”—that is technically a more serious offence and punishable with life imprisonment—“but do me a favour and drop the offence of assaulting a PC.” A lazy prosecutor—this point was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley—might say, “Oh for goodness’ sake. Let us carve this up. He is going to get a custodial sentence of two to three years for this unpleasant robbery. Is it really worth proceeding with the charge of assaulting a PC?”

What should happen in those circumstances? A conscientious and decent prosecutor would speak to the officer and say, “This is what is being proposed. What are your thoughts about it?” If in those circumstances the officer says, “I want justice to be done. I want this individual to have on their record not just that they are a robber, but that they have assaulted a police officer”, it would be wrong for the prosecution not to proceed with that charge and for justice not to be done. A prosecutor should already take into account the feelings of the victims, and I suggest that it would be in breach of their duty as a prosecutor not to proceed in such circumstances, and it would be a failed assessment of the public interest. In my experience, where those decisions have gone wrong and a case has been dropped, police officers rightly feel that their interests have not been taken into account.

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[Alex Chalk]

I take that point entirely.

My final point is about the issue of grievous bodily harm with intent, which most right-thinking people would think is the appropriate offence to charge someone with who had bitten a police officer’s finger, but a middle ground exists between grievous bodily harm with intent and common assault, which currently has a maximum sentence of six months—that is, assault occasioning actual bodily harm. Why do I mention that? As has been intimated, common assault is for offences that leave no mark at all. If any offence leaves a mark that, in the language of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861, is more than merely transient or trifling—in plain English, that is reddening of the skin—the defendant can be charged with assault occasioning actual bodily harm, whether the victim is an emergency worker or not, with a maximum penalty of five years. That would mean, once the discount for an early guilty plea is taken off, that someone could be inside for 20 months maximum.

This is my central point: let us support this Bill and let us send out the message that attacks on our emergency workers are heinous, that they are not to be tolerated and that the law should come down like a ton of bricks. However, let us also not forget that getting justice means selecting the offence so that the punishment will fit the crime—

[Holly Lynch]

rose—

[Alex Chalk]

Just before I finish my peroration, I give way to the hon. Lady.

[Holly Lynch]

The hon. Gentleman is making an incredibly powerful speech and raising some really interesting issues. For me, when we are looking at how we can make a difference in this area, our role as legislators means that we are in some ways limited in how we intervene in the other areas of injustice that he has raised. My question to him, using his legal background and expertise, is this: once we have done our bit by amending the legislation—that will go some way to addressing this problem—how do we appropriately intervene to address the other areas of injustice that he also outlined?

[Alex Chalk]

The hon. Lady makes an excellent point. It would be a very dark day indeed if Members of Parliament in this place were effectively directing independent prosecutors how to exercise their discretion—I know she is not suggesting that for a second—so we have to tread extremely carefully. Ultimately, when a prosecutor decides which charge to choose, they will have to weigh two things: first, sufficiency of evidence—is there sufficient evidence to make it more likely than not that a jury properly directed would convict?—and secondly, is it in the public interest? They have to weigh certain factors in considering the public interest, ranging from the likely sentence at the end of a conviction to protection of the public, and all sorts of things. What we say in this Chamber, however, is capable of forming part of that public interest. If we send the message out that we expect condign punishment, to use a faintly pretentious expression, to be visited on those who assault our emergency workers, that factor can properly be weighed into the mix when prosecutors decide—in the circumstances of the emergency worker who attends the nightclub or the police officer who has their finger bitten off—what offence to choose. The message will ring out from this Chamber that we expect our protectors to be protected.

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Clauses 4 to 6 therefore should not remain in the Bill.

[Holly Lynch]

I will rattle through my speech, as I know we are pushed for time. I entirely appreciate and sympathise with amendments 4 to 6 and, following our discussions with Ministers, I understand the practical challenges of clauses 4 to 6, but I want to push a little further. If we remove these clauses, what else can we do to mitigate some of the outstanding anxieties that will still persist?

As the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) has outlined, spitting makes up 21% of all assaults on police officers in West Yorkshire. For that reason, it is important we get this right. As my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) said, certain organisations advocate vaccination as one option to protect against some communicable diseases. Although I endorse that as part of the solution, there are two problems with it. First, I am uncomfortable that vaccination removes responsibility from the spitter not to spit in the first place, and on to the 999 responder to take precautions in preparation for being spat at. That is part of the reason why I am so supportive of amendment 2, which I am pleased was fully discussed in the previous group of amendments.

My second problem is that, as the Minister will know, most forces have an immunisation programme to vaccinate against hepatitis B. However, due to the global shortage of hepatitis B vaccines, forces have had to follow Government advice to suspend those programmes, which means people in roles identified as at increased risk, such as police officers, special constables, detention officers, PCSOs and crime scene investigators, are already going without this level of cover.

I am pleased that stocks of the vaccine are starting to become available again, but there is a backlog of immunisations. Some officers are particularly vulnerable during this window, making the types of mitigation we are now exploring all the more pertinent if we are to abandon clauses 4 to 6.

I also have concerns that the support and advice received by emergency service workers who have been spat at varies greatly. I would like the advice and support to be standardised for all those defined as emergency service workers, as per the definition in the Bill, so they can access the very best specialist medical advice within hours, allowing them to make informed decisions. That will restore the power balance and their dignity, which the spitter has sought to take from them.

Another criticism of these clauses is that the rates of transmission, and therefore the risks, are so low that there simply is not the evidence to warrant testing in the first place, yet we know that is not what is happening in practice. On Second Reading I told the story of PC Mike Bruce and PC Alan O’Shea of West Midlands police, who both had blood spat in their face as they tried to arrest a violent offender. They both received medical advice recommending that they undergo antiviral treatments, and they faced a six-month wait to find out whether the treatment had been successful.

As I explained on Second Reading and repeat now to reinforce the point, during that time PC O’Shea’s brother was undergoing treatment for cancer. Because medical professionals deemed that the risk of passing on an infection was too high, should he have contracted a disease, PC O’Shea was advised not to see his brother throughout the intervening period. He was also advised not to see his parents, because they were in such regular contact with his brother. PC Bruce had a false positive result for hepatitis B and his young family were also then tested and faced a six-month wait for conclusive test results, which confirmed that they all had the all-clear.

Although those experiences are two of the most anxious and prolonged I have come across, they are not uncommon. I need to be able to look those two officers in the eye and say to them that we have not given up on making sure that no officer has to go through the same experience, rather that we are simply taking another approach. I look to the Government to work with us on making that happen, beyond the Bill, if we are to remove clauses 4 to 6.

[Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is making a powerful point. Does she agree that the clauses on spitting were some of the most popular measures in the Bill, as originally drafted, when we discussed it with constituents who are emergency workers, so if we are going to drop them, we need a strong statement from Ministers today on what more can be done to tackle this problem, which she clearly highlights?

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[Holly Lynch]

I agree entirely with that point, and I am reassured by what the Minister said about seeking to toughen up deterrence in respect of the language contained in an earlier provision in the Bill. In the event that spitting does not cease with immediate effect, we will still have to ensure that we offer those protections relating to dealing with those anxieties, and offering clarity and support. The right hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Stephen Crabb) is quite right: that is what I am looking to see from Ministers today.

[Alex Chalk]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Holly Lynch]

I certainly will—I will return the favour.

[Alex Chalk]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way, just at this last moment. What was striking about the point she made was that in the instance that she cited a police officer was given medical advice that there was a risk, yet that medical advice appears, statistically, to run entirely counter to the statistics that were provided by the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant). So part of resolving this, and giving clear protection and advice to officers, is about ensuring that consistent medical advice is given—does the hon. Lady agree?

[Holly Lynch]

I entirely agree. That goes back to the earlier point that we cannot fix everything through legislation. I agree entirely that where there are shortcomings with this legislative approach, even if we withdraw it, we will not fix the problem. So what alternatives—the hon. Gentleman has rightly reflected on those—do we need to put in place? I am open to any and all suggestions—but without that legislation I am looking for alternatives.

[Rory Stewart]

First, I very much welcome the fact that the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) has proposed that these clauses be removed from the Bill. To answer directly the case made by the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Stephen Crabb), let me say that at the core of this problem is a problem of anxiety. The individual who is spitting blood at the police officer is exploiting a myth—they are exploiting something that simply is not true. Public Health England is absolutely clear that the chances of contracting a blood-borne disease through somebody spitting at you is close to zero. This is unbelievably important, because the most significant way we can prevent this epidemic of spitting, is by making it clear to the people doing the spitting that the terror they are trying to communicate is a joke—it is absurd. These people are, in the traditional sense of the word, “terrorists”; their intention is to spread terror. What they are trying to do is psychological.

Putting into the Bill something that reconfirms the psychological fallacy that someone can communicate a blood-borne disease through spitting will simply encourage these people to spit even more. What they are trying to do by spitting, in some deranged way, is to make a death threat. They are trying to say, “By spitting at you with blood, I am giving you a terminal disease”, but they cannot do that. The best response to someone who is attempting to produce a fiction or magic, and is trying to intimidate you through magic, is to say, “This is nonsense. What you have done to me is disgusting. I’ve got a gob load of spit on me, but there is absolutely no way you’ve harmed my health by doing this.”

That needs to be made absolutely clear, because there are two separate problems involved in this. One relates to the risk of transmission and the second relates to the nature of these tests. The risk of transmission of a blood-borne disease through spitting is, as Public Health England says, close to zero. The second problem is with these tests. The hon. Member for Halifax gave an example of a false positive, but there are also many examples of false negatives, and these tests are not timely—they cannot communicate an early transmission. Consequently, the only way in which a medical professional should respond to these cases is by focusing not on a test result, which is irrelevant because it is not reliable, but on the mode of transmission. In other words, if somebody has been spat at there should not be any post-exposure prophylaxis treatment given, regardless of an apparent result of a test.

If, on the other hand, someone has been injected with a needle, in almost every case PEP should be allocated, again regardless of the result of the test as that result might show up too late for the PEP to be effective. The proper medical procedure is therefore to focus on the mode, not the test. That means that in this case it would not be of significant use to test somebody, it would not be strictly necessary, and it would not be proportionate in balancing the benefit and the cost. The right to know would therefore not trump the right to privacy in this case.

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[Holly Lynch]

It is an honour to follow the right hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Stephen Crabb). He has been a fantastic supporter of this campaign from the start, which I and my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) have appreciated.

I start by paying tribute to my partner in crime fighting, my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda, for his work in getting us here today. He is always incredibly generous in crediting me with starting this campaign, but the truth is that without his tenacity, his leadership, and his encyclopaedic knowledge of how this place works, we simply would not have made it this far. I know that blue-light responders, NHS workers, and prison officers all over the country are truly grateful to him.

For all our political differences in this place, and what can often seem like the glacial pace of delivering change in Westminster, to go from a harrowing experience in my constituency when out with West Yorkshire police in summer 2016, to being here today, just two years later, at Third Reading for a Bill that will create a new offence of assaulting an emergency service worker, is a showcase of Parliament at its best. That does not mean that getting here was easy, and unusually the journey between Committee stage and Report was the most trying period of the Bill’s passage. It is not entirely the Bill that I hoped it would be for the reasons we explored on Report, but it is a massive step in the right direction.

We know that only a package of measures—legislative and otherwise—will bring about the societal change we want. That will involve working with the Crown Prosecution Service, the judiciary, employers, offenders, and emergency service workers to promote the reporting of such acts, ensure that appropriate support is provided, and that the consequences that follow reflect the seriousness of the crime.

It would be remiss of me not to pay tribute to PC Craig Gallant, the single-crewed officer who I shadowed on that fateful evening in Halifax. Not only did he narrowly escape potentially serious or even life-threatening injuries at the hands of an angry mob, but nothing quite prepared him for the trauma of me thrusting him into the spotlight as the face of a national campaign to protect emergency service workers, and the merciless ribbing that he took from his colleagues as a result. Thank you PC Gallant for allowing me to tell that story. I know that your colleagues understand and appreciate that they will be better protected in future because of it.

I also thank Lambeth police because, ironically and infuriatingly, during Second Reading my flat in London was broken into and robbed. When the police came to investigate, they told me that they would normally ask for more information about my whereabouts during the time the robbery took place, but that they knew exactly where I was because they had been following the debate. Fingers crossed that my flat is still intact when I return to it this evening. If not I will be joining the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) and revisiting sentencing guidelines across the board.

My biggest regret is that we could not agree on more concrete proposals to address the fears and anxieties of a 999 responder who has been spat at by an offender. I understand the practical problems with the clauses as originally drafted, and the limitations of testing, yet unless we establish evidence-based best practice that extends to all those covered by the Bill, I fear that the problems we are trying to overcome will persist. I want to ensure that those who have had either blood or saliva spat at them receive the best possible medical advice from a specialist, within hours of the incident. I am hopeful of that becoming a reality, based on earlier conversations and the contribution from the Minister at the Dispatch Box, and I hope for firmer proposals before the Bill completes its journey through both Houses. I am grateful to the trade unions representing emergency service workers that have been with us all the way on this journey—Unison, the GMB, the Prison Officers Association and the Police Federation. Again, I join the hon. Member for Shipley in paying particular tribute to Chief Inspector Nick Smart, the chair of the West Yorkshire Police Federation. He has been incredibly important in helping us to turn one incident into a national campaign for change.

We have had a good, constructive dialogue with the Government throughout this process. While we have encountered practical challenges and differences of opinion, I am pleased that we have been able to work through the vast majority of those in as collaborative a way as possible. I am grateful to both the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart) and the Minister for Policing and the Fire Service, the right hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (Mr Hurd) for that relationship. I also thank the shadow Policing Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh), who has made a series of speeches on the Bill from the Dispatch Box. Characteristically, she always got the tone and content absolutely right.

I say to all who have shared their stories with me, my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda and other MPs who have supported the Bill, often when there was a difficult tale to tell, that those experiences have assisted with the shaping and fine-tuning of these law changes, and emergency service workers, NHS workers and prison officers, now and in the future, will be better protected because of it.