Protection under the Equality Act 2010
[ch 12: page 255]Workers may have a claim for harassment where the behaviour is as a result of one of the characteristics protected by the Equality Act 2010 (EA 2010), namely sex, pregnancy and maternity, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, disability, race, religion or belief, age, or marriage and civil partnership discrimination.
Harassment by third parties
In December 2018, the TUC published Not part of the job research showing that over half of workers have experienced some form of harassment from the public while going about their jobs, with young workers particularly badly affected. The TUC spoke to over 4,500 workers and found that 36% of 18 to 34-year-olds who have experienced some form of harassment, abuse or violence at work said the perpetrator was a third-party. The report is available on the TUC website.
The Tory-led coalition government repealed legislation to protect front-line staff, such as care workers, teachers and nurses, from abuse. It argued, when it repealed section 40 of the EA 2010, that employees could use other legal avenues where employers failed to take reasonable steps to protect them from third party harassment, including section 26 of the Act. However, in May 2018, in Unite the Union v Nailard [2018] EWCA Civ 1203, the Court of Appeal confirmed that employees cannot rely on their employer’s general duty to protect them from harassment under section 26 with regard to third party harassment.
https://www.tuc.org.uk/sites/default/files/NotPartoftheJob.pdf