The Food and Environmental Hygiene Department must provide extra manpower to protect its frontline officers when enforcing hygiene regulations, a union said. The appeal by the department's foreman-grade staff union was made after a Filipino maid, Ludy Visllas Favillaran, received a one-month jail term and a $1,500 fine yesterday for assaulting and wounding three of the department's officers. Her female employer, Evelyn Dolores Mills, was fined $15,000 by Eastern Court magistrate Eda Loh Lai-kuen for similar offences. The incident took place outside the David Trench Rehabilitation Centre in Bonham Road, Mid-Levels, on September 5 last year. The officers were conducting an operation to enforce hygiene regulations when a dog being walked by the maid was found to have soiled the street. 'When asked by a Food and Environmental Hygiene Department officer for her personal particulars, the Filipina refused to cooperate. She and her female employer then assaulted and wounded three public officers,' a department spokesman said. Union chairwoman Li Mei-siu said the case highlighted the growing danger faced by her colleagues in executing their duties. 'With the introduction of heavier fines, people have developed a hardened attitude towards resisting authority,' she said.
