North Somerset council staff were sick of him smashing their car windscreens, breaking the windows of the Bourneville estate office and trying to leap over the interview desk to punch people. Critchlow was "out of control and very agressive," according to one officer.
For housing workers on the front line, it is a familiar tale. While Critchlow's menancing behaviour ultimately broke the mould - it led to the first anti-social behaviour order in England - his story does not, of course, stand alone.
Other incidents of serious violence and threats to housing staff include the case of the female hostel worker stabbed 13 times in the back while working alone on a night shift. And then there is the case of the maintenance worker who had his face slashed with a Stanley knife when he visited a tenant to carry out some minor repairs. Or the housing association officer who received a fractured spine from an ex-tenant who had decided to pay him a visit - incidents of stalking have also been growing in frequency.
Extreme violence and savage threats are only part of the problem - everyone in housing has tales to tell of abuse and intimidation from disgruntled tenants. One transfer association recently described to Housing Today how members of staff were repeatedly reduced to tears and left with ragged nerves due to a never-ending torrent of abusive complaints from one man.
Government figures released last month back up the horror stories. The British Crime Survey identified the fact that housing officers "seem to be particularly at risk", as 7.1 per cent were victims of violence while working in 1997. The average for all professions across the country is just 2.8 per cent.
And it doesn't end there. The Health and Safety Executive's recent study into injuries sustained in residential care homes between 1995/96 and 1996/97 discovered 211 major injuries caused by violence, and a further 548 staff were unable to return to work for over three days because of the severity of their wounds. Public services union Unison reckons there is a fourfold increase in risk for those who work in the hostel and supported housing sector, as staff tangle with vulnerable clients, many with mental health problems or drug or alcohol addictions.
But while the official recognition of housing as a "high risk profession" is a step forward, housing officers are still relatively unprotected in law - as a recent Court of Appeal ruling highlighted.
Lords Justice Waller and Buxton decided that staff in estate offices have no statutory rights to protection. This is because the Housing Act 1996 rules that injunctions can only be granted if the defendants were breaking the law near residential premises - and the judges decided that there was not sufficient connection between the estate office, where the staff were being attacked, and the nearby homes.
"There had to be a nexus between the residential premises and the persons whom the section sought to protect," Waller and Buxton said. "The section was directed towards the milkman, the gasman and their like, and not to persons who were working in an office which happened to be only yards away from residential premises."
This decision is at odds with government safety experts, who insist all employers have a duty to protect staff. Malcolm Darvill, head of psychosocial policy at the Health and Safety Executive, says research shows the extent to which the human suffering that results from violence at work can be underestimated.
The crime survey, which was funded by the HSE, revealed that almost three quarters of victims of violence at work said they had been emotionally scarred by the incident. The psychological trauma of being threatened or attacked leaves people angry, shocked and afraid to go about their work.
More than half of those surveyed who had been assaulted or threatened while at work said they wanted some type of help following the incident.
"Employers have a legal duty to protect the health and safety of workers and this includes assessing the risk of foreseeable violence at work and putting controls into place to protect workers from it," Darvill says.
According to Steve Wilkinson, housing association branch secretary of Unison, this has to be done in a systematic way. Small organisations are particularly prone to lacking risk assessment and training, he explains - often due to the strains of too few resources in an already over-stressed environment. But all organisations need to constantly review how they approach the problem.
"Whenever we look at reviewing policies with employers there is always something more that can be done," Wilkinson says. "Employers need to make their service users fully aware of the consequences of violence and threatening behaviour to staff. If there is a sort of attrition going on where service users do display unreasonable behaviour and thus placing staff under an unreasonable degree of stress that sort of issue needs to be nipped in the bud by management.
"Training and security measures do cost but there is no price that can be paid for a human life."
And staff have to pull their weight too, says housing and training consultant Michael Glew. "Officers have to look where the risks are - client groups that they are dealing with, where they work, times when areas are not safe - and just point where their work environment is unpredictable and unsafe.
"Staff have a responsibility, they can't just sit back and say 'This organisation doesn't protect me'. They must say 'What can I do to protect myself and assist my colleagues?'"
Researchers for the Home Office insist that circumstances are improving for those at the sharp end of abuse, with the introduction of tighter security measures like closed circuit television and security guards and improved staff training on handling potentially violent situations.
Indeed, the latter was forced up the agenda after Beverley Lancaster's high profile court battle with Birmingham council. It was forced to pay her £67,000 compensation due to the lack of training she received for coping with angry tenants (Housing Today, 8 July).
These are all crucial preventative measures. Could North Somerset's use of an anti-social behaviour order be the way forward?
Litigation team leader Mike Rowan reckons there may be no other hope. "It could be the only option given the recent judgement in the Court of Appeal against Enfield," he says. "At the time people questioned whether I was right to use an order to protect staff, now I think I have been vindicated because we have not other options."
Whatever direction is taken, it appears the profession will always have a struggle on its hands. Although reported incidents do not seem to be on the increase, neither are they predicted to fall, and there will never be a magic panacea to remove the risk of violence entirely from the workplace.
However, it could be argued that the government should take a hand in the situation as it did for the sector's colleagues in social services. Three weeks ago care minister John Hutton set up a national task force aimed at resolving the high levels of violence against care staff.
That social workers face a disproportionately high level of violence compared with other professions is clearly unacceptable, and it is hoped the task force will be able to reduce this. But it would make no sense at all if brutal attacks on housing officers subsequently took its place.
Source
Housing Today
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