How rude insults and daily abuse affect railway staff

This insult is part of a South Western Railway campaign to tackle low-level everyday abuse of railway staff. Paul Cifton finds out why it is needed.

“We have seen verbal assaults on staff double since COVID,” says Grant Robey, crime and security manager at South Western Railway. “It is becoming much more of a problem.”

SWR records 40 assaults on its 5,000 staff each month, on average. Two thirds are verbal assaults, one third are physical. It believes this is the tip of an iceberg - the great majority of assaults go unreported.