COMMUNITY outrage is growing over the decision to release two women who bashed a paramedic so badly while they were drunk that he needed three operations and still can’t work.

A Facebook post with a photo of one of the woman, Amanda Warren, walking from court after her original conviction and holding up her middle finger to the cameras has attracted almost 500 responses and 70 comments.

Ms Warren, 33, and Caris Underwood, 22, had their sentences quashed this week because they had difficult childhoods and had battled drug, alcohol and mental-health problems.

Two years ago, after a daylong binge on bourbon, champagne and cannabis, the two women had repeatedly punched and kicked veteran Victorian paramedic Paul Judd, who was left with a broken foot.

Mr Judd wiped away tears on Tuesday as Judge Barbara Cotterell overturned the women’s prison sentences imposed last December in the Melbourne Magistrates Court.

She set aside a ruling stemming from a 2014 law which gives offenders mandatory jail time for assaulting emergency workers on duty.

On the Facebook page Triple Zero Tolerance, one woman posted below the photo of Ms Warren issuing her finger salute “disgusting”, while another wrote “this picture says it all”.

Others called Ms Warren names, while some posters attacked Judge Cotterell’s decision.

Another woman said Ms Warren “should be in jail!”

A Melbourne magistrate had previously sent Ms Warren and Ms Underwood to prison, respectively, for six months and four months.

The court heard that Mr Judd and another ambulance officer Chenaye Bentley were trying to treat an unconscious man in the northern Melbourne suburb of Reservoir on March 31, 2016.

The drunken Ms Warren and Ms Underwood began to verbally abuse the two officers and then began punching Mr Judd and kicking him while he was pinned to the ground.

When he yelled at them to stop, he was punched in the head.

On Tuesday, Judge Cotterell found special circumstances applied to both women which meant they could avoid automatic prison sentences.

She ruled the pair had made “enormous” efforts to turn their lives around after “appalling” childhoods and battles with drug, alcohol and mental-health problems.

She also found both women were probably mentally impaired when they attacked Mr Judd and Ms Bentley.

Mr Judd said immediately after the decision “justice hasn’t been done”.

Judge Barbara Cotterell said their difficult childhoods and young families meant the mandatory minimum six-month term should not apply.

“Whilst having enormous sympathy for the victims who were attacked while going about their duties as emergency workers ... I have reached the conclusion that imposing the sentence at this stage would achieve little,” she told the court.

Victorian laws introduced in 2014 require anyone who intentionally injures an emergency worker to be imprisoned for at least six months, unless there are “special reasons”.

Judge Cotterell said she did not think Warren or Underwood were “suitable vehicles” for general deterrence and found their difficult childhoods constituted “special reasons”.

Details about the women’s past cannot be published for legal reasons, but the judge found Warren suffered from a mental illness and had impaired mental function.

She also said Underwood, who was 18 at the time of the assault, had a lowered psychosocial immaturity linked to her traumatic childhood.

Judge Cotterell apologised to Mr Judd after re-sentencing Warren to a three-year community corrections order and 150 hours of community work, while Underwood received a two-year order and 50 hours of unpaid work.

“I’m really sorry and can see that you are badly affected,” she told him.

Outside court, Mr Judd said he was appalled and devastated by Judge Cotterell’s decision, which also has implications for his colleagues.

“It just leaves the door open for everybody to have an excuse to do what they want with no repercussions,” he told reporters.

“And that’s basically what (those) people did — gotten away with it, no repercussions.” Mr Judd also said he had spent more time in hospital than the 14 days of pre- sentence detention the woman served after they were arrested.

Speaking on 3AW Drive yesterday, Victorian secretary of the Ambulance Employees Australia Union Steve McGhie said: “I’m quite disgusted with the outcome”.

Following the decision yesterday, ambulance officers protested by writing messages on the back of ambulances: “It’s not OK to assault paramedics”.