Amnesty: UK police adopting 'US approach'

Wednesday, 14 May 2008 12:00 AM

Amnesty International has accused UK police forces of behaving like their American counterparts, following Home Office figures showing the use of Taser guns to have sky-rocketed.

In just the second quarter of the Tasers' 12 month trial, use of the gun by police rose from 14 incidents in the first three months to 163 incidents on 185 subjects in the three months following it.

Amnesty warned the sharp rise indicated Tasers could soon become misused by UK police.

"Clearly these new figures show a significant increase in the first six months of this trial, and they indicate a worrying trend," said Oliver Sprague, Amnesty's arms programme director.

"This trial may well be the start of a slippery slope where we see the UK police force adopting an approach similar to that in the USA, where Tasers are used far more frequently, and where they have openly been misused.

"We really do not want to see such incidents here in the UK," he continued.

"This is why we will continue to insist that only officers who are trained to current level of specialist firearms officers are able to use these weapons, and in very limited circumstances."

Tasers are welcomed by many police forces as a useful weapon which stops police having to resort to standard handguns but human rights groups warn the weapons have the capacity to kill and should be used sparingly, if at all.

Tags:
• crime
,
• domestic policy
,
• policing and crime