EXCLUSIVE: Viking investigates extent of abuse on our emergency service workers

Viking has been looking into the shocking levels of abuse our emergency service workers face on a daily basis.

In the first part of our special investigation, we have spoken exclusively to a Humberside Police officer who was attacked in broad daylight by a man with a shotgun in a Hull street.

Police Constable Mark Hawley has shared his story with Viking to raise awareness of the extent of violence officers face every day while trying to protect the public.

In his first ever interview since the attack almost two years ago; Mark told our reporter, Natalie Bell, how he's still suffering with the mental scars from the incident:

Viking has also been given access to figures which show hundreds of Humberside Police officers are being attacked every year.

Last year, more than 200 officers reported being assaulted.

But that's apparently just the tip of the iceberg as many more go unreported.

Pete Musgrave from the Humberside Police Federation is now calling on police force's to roll out body worn video cameras to help better protect officers.

Pete told Viking:

"Attacks on officers is an every day occurrence. We are dealing with incidents across the force where we have to use force and so people try and use force against us so it is commonplace across the force daily. It ranges from punching, kicking, pushing, spitting to more severe and nasty assaults on officers.

"I'm fully supportive of body-worn cameras as I think it will assist our members dealing with the more violent incidents and it's also a protection for the public so they can see what they are doing. Officers do not go out of their way to use force just on a whim, they do this diligently.

"No-one comes to work to be assaulted, we have got a duty to do and what they don't expect is to be assaulted when they do that and unfortunately they are but anything we can do to help them is welcome by me."

We also spoke to Humberside Police Chief Constable, Garry Forsyth, who said:

"We are looking at body-worn video at the moment to gather evidence effectively at the first point. We are running a pilot on this and if the results of the pilot are successful then we will be quite keen to roll this out as quickly as we can.

"Any attack on any public servant and officers is one that I'm not prepared to tolerate and we will do everything we can to ensure our staff are appropriately protected because they do a fantastic job day in day out for us and it's only right we give them the appropriate protection for what is a difficult job at times."

We've also been looking at how attacks are affecting our local fire and ambulance services. You can hear from them in our news tomorrow.