What happened
On 6 July 2020 Deena Evans, 40, from Willenhall, and Michael Hipgrave, 52, from Coalbrookdale, paramedics with West Midlands Ambulance Service, were sent to a concern-for-welfare check at a maisonette in Stephens Close, Ashmore Park, Wolverhampton. They attended with police. There was no response at the door, and the decision was taken to force entry.
Martyn Smith, 52, of Stephens Close, ran from the kitchen with an eight-inch knife in each hand. Evans was stabbed in the chest and suffered nerve damage; she spent two days in hospital. Hipgrave needed surgery for cuts to his back. Evans collapsed in the garden and told a female officer: “Please don’t let me die, I’ve got three children.”
The outcome
Smith admitted two counts of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm at Wolverhampton Crown Court. On 9 July 2021 he was jailed for nine years, with a further five years on licence. The judge praised the paramedics’ “courage and bravery in the most challenging of circumstances”.
In a victim impact statement Evans said the sentence would not give her back the year she lost. Both have since returned to work, with counselling. The case became a flagship example of the #WorkWithoutFear campaign.
What went wrong
A welfare check is not a 999 call. Nobody in the house had asked for help, nobody opened the door, and the job began with force.
Two clinicians and at least one police officer were at that door, so this was not lone working in the rota sense. It was lone working where it counts: at the moment of entry the person nearest the risk was unarmed, and the only protection in the hall was the officer’s judgement.
The service’s answer afterwards was equipment. According to BBC News, NHS England funded almost £1m for West Midlands Ambulance Service to buy 1,288 body cameras. Body armour trials began at the Willenhall hub, and the paramedics called for stab vests for all paramedics. ITV reported that more than 3,500 ambulance staff in England had been assaulted in the past year, a 32% rise on five years earlier.
What it teaches
A forced entry on a welfare call is a different job from a clinical visit and should be planned as one. Police at the door first, the inside declared safe, the clinician behind the threshold rather than beside it. A knife in a hallway gives nobody time to reassess, so the reassessment has to happen on the doorstep, before the door comes open.
Equipment is not a plan. A body camera records what happens to you; it does not stop it. If the answer to violence at the door is a vest, the entry protocol has to be there as well.
Our lone working training covers joint working with police and the decisions at a forced door.
Questions for the room
- Who goes through the door first on a forced-entry welfare call, and is that written down anywhere?
- Where does the clinician stand while the door is being forced, and who is watching the corridor behind them?
- The trust bought more than a thousand body cameras. What changed for the two people at the door?
- If your service offered you a stab vest tomorrow, what else would have to change before it was worth wearing?
Evidence and limits
Confidence: confirmed. BBC News and ITV News Central both reported the sentencing on 9 July 2021 and were read in full; the injuries, the sentence and the recovery agree. ITV’s copy says the sentencing happened “today (July 14)” while its own dateline is 9 July 2021, so this page gives no hearing day beyond the month. No source publishes the trust’s risk assessment or the joint entry protocol, so the page describes what happened at the door, not what was written down.
Sources
- BBC News, July 2021 · https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-birmingham-57779506
- ITV News Central, July 2021 · https://www.itv.com/news/central/2021-07-09/man-jailed-for-9-years-after-stabbing-two-paramedics-who-came-to-check-on-him
Reviewed 20 October 2026.