Spotlight on police training as Taser use doubles

For the first time in three years the Home Office has published figures on the police use of Tasers, writes Channel 4 News Home Affairs Correspondent Simon Israel (additional reporting by Cara Berkley)

The device once regarded as a “toy gun” by firearms officers is now carried on the belt of more than 14,000 police – and the numbers are growing.

A rise in the use of “drive stun” techniques where the mouth of the Taser is held against a person’s body and then fired has prompted a rise in complaints.

There have been eight deaths in the UK following the use of a Taser but none has officially been blamed on the device.

Amnesty International has criticised what it sees as a lack of training, given the Taser’s lethal potential.

Increasingly tense

The Metropolitan police allowed us rare access to see the course for ourselves.

There were 12 officers from various response teams across London. The course has a 25 per cent failure rate. Instructors aim to weed out the trigger-happy and the reluctant.

There is no psychological assessment. They are all recommended for the course by their superiors. At the end they will be authorised to carry and use the device when they see fit.

Instructors aim to weed out the trigger-happy and the reluctant.

They are told that a red dot aimed at the chest is often enough to invoke fear and submission. They are taken through various menacing scenarios, such as the man armed with a baseball bat or a machete.

They are taught to keep a finger on the trigger right up until the point the target is subdued. The situations get increasingly tense. Not all the trainees make it through the course.

The officers are assessed on ensuring the two probes are fired from an optimum distance and far enough a part for an electrical circuit to travel through most of the body.

In the classroom they get warned about the dangers and what to do if things go wrong.

Read more: Taser firings - the inside story

Suspected heart condition

Things went wrong in Manchester in July for 23-year-old Jordan Begley, who died after police shot him with a Taser in Manchester.

An initial post-mortem proved inconclusive, with the Home Office pathologist unable to determine what caused Begley’s death.

His mother Dot had called the police herself after her son had rowed with a neighbour. He was not armed, she says, or hostile.

She was ushered out of the house so did not see what happened next.

His eyes were just flickering and I knew something really bad had happened. Dot Begley, mother of Jordan Begley

“I didn’t have a clue they’d Tasered them until I saw the ambulance pull up with the emergency lights

“It was when they actually brought him out on the stretcher, he wasn’t with it. His eyes were just flickering and I knew something really bad had happened.”

What the police did not know was that Jordan had a suspected heart condition. Mrs Begley is adamant it was the Taser that killed her son.

“He was fine before they turned up. I made that call at 16 minutes past eight. By half past eight that kid was dead. So you tell me it wasn’t the Taser that killed him.

Read more: Huge rise in police Taser firings

‘Trained to act immediately’

However, none of the previous seven Taser-related deaths have been officially blamed on the device. There is now an Independent Police Complaints Commission Inquiry.

In fact, it is one of many inquiries the IPCC has conducted into the use of Tasers. There have been 79 investigations in the last 3 years, with 267 complaints made between 2010 and 2012.

Only one has resulted in any action against police officers. A critical report is waiting publication.

Sergeant Andy Harding, the lead Taser trainer for the Metropolitan police, told us: “There is nothing out there that is risk free when dealing with conflict, whether it be using a Taser, a baton, or CS spray.

“We don’t have time to go through a checklist of questions about what a person’s medical history is or whether they are suffering from a heart condition.

“But when the Taser is deployed, officers are trained to act immediately to see that person is OK and, if they are not, to treat it as a medical emergency.”