She is directly protected not only under employment law but several others. It is her employers responsibilty under the law to ensure that it (they) are adheared to in the workplace.
From the website of my old employ as a full time union rep,
http://cwusea.org.cwu.ukadslmail.com/bully.bmp
If you can’t read it very well the original can be found here http://cwusea.org/
go to the ‘equality’ pages from the top navigation bar and scroll down to ‘bullying at work’, download and enlarge it.
There is quite a lot of general information on those equality pages which, whilst slanted to Bt of Post Office employees, the points of law are correct and apply wherever you work.
All employees, whatever the size of the company, part or full time are entitled to and should have a contract of employment, a section of which should state the standards of discipline that are expected (not only specific to the company) but also with respect to the laws of the land. It should also contain specific refrence to how breaches of discipline will be dealt with.
If I can find them I will post the links to the relevant sections on the DTI website, they make interesting reading.
As a first step she should (must) write everything down, not only the actions of the ‘offender’ (dates, times, what was said/sent/happened ) but also the re-actions, how it made her feel, those of her colleagues and the action (or lack of at present) of her boss.
I would imagine from what you say that her boss has very little experience of dealing with this sort of thing and as far as they are concerned all that has taken place so far is an informal chat over a small problem.
This is why gathering the evidence is so important because if no action is taken the problem will persist.
Once you have the evidence you can present it formally and then the employer must investigate the situation properly and must take appropriate action.
IT’S THE LAW !
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