A Dorset police officer has spoken about his frightening ordeal when a man he was arresting coughed in his face and told him he had coronavirus.

PC Adam Lillywhite said the experience left him "scared and worried" for his safety, as well as his colleague's and his family's.

"I just wanted to tell you about an incident I went to the other day when someone decided to cough on me and my colleague and say they had coronavirus.

"So, earlier on in the day, me and my colleague were sent to a call to Tesco where a man was causing problems outside. We advised him to go home due to the government lockdown rules, he decided to say that it didn't really apply to him and that he'd go to the beach.

"We managed to be able to persuade him to go home and that was the end of the matter.

"However, a couple of hours later, he came to notice again outside another shop. He was causing problems with staff, getting in people's faces, started to cough and sneeze at people on purpose.

"As we turn up we arrest him for a public order offence and as we arrest him he decided to say he had corona and started coughing in our faces, saying 'here, have some of this coronavirus'.

"At that point I was quite worried for mine and my colleague's safety, thinking why has this person done this? Has he got coronavirus? What does it mean to me? And ultimately, I've got to go home at the end of a shift, and is it going to affect my family?

"I was both scared and worried, it just wasn't a very nice experience."

PC Lillywhite wants to use his experience of this horrible incident to stop people abusing emergency service workers. He shared his story as part of Dorset Police's #Unacceptable campaign, highlighting the number of verbal abuse, assaults or attacks their staff face and the rising number involving threats of COVID-19 infection.

He added: "If I am going to say something to other people who are thinking to do exactly the same thing: Don't. Please don't. We're here to try and keep you safe, it's not very nice, we're all in this together as everyone says and I genuinely believe that we are. We have to do our bit to make everyone safe and let's not make people's lives difficult. It is a difficult situation we are all in and let's just try and make it easier for everyone else."