RNLI volunteer ‘verbally assaulted’ by public

A volunteer with the Royal National Lifeboat Institution has reported being 'verbally assaulted' by members of the public while on duty.

The Tower RNLI station said it was "shocked and saddened" by the incident in central London on Friday night and tweeted: "This behaviour will not be tolerated".

In a tweet to its followers, the station said the abuse of the crew member was "due to their role when reporting for duty".

The RNLI said it was not able to confirm the nature of the abuse directed at its crew member or the reason why they were targeted.

"Last night at approximately 10pm, a crew member arriving at Tower Lifeboat Station was subject to verbal abuse from two members of the public,” a spokesperson said in a statement.

“This was reported to the Metropolitan Police who are now looking into the incident."

It is thought the incident was reported online.

A spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police said the force was not able to comment "at this stage”.

Earlier this month the RNLI issued a statement saying it had received a “huge volume of comments on social media about our lifesaving work in the Channel”.

“We want to be absolutely clear that we are incredibly proud of the humanitarian work our volunteer lifeboat crews do to rescue vulnerable people in distress,” the charity said.

"Our lifesavers are compelled to go to those in need without judgement of how they came to be in the water. They have done so since the RNLI was founded in 1924 and this will always be our ethos."