The secretary of the National Council for Civil Liberties, Cameron Murphy, said: ''It's outrageous that they've used the weapon this way, and it's even more outrageous that they haven't told us about it.

The repeated stunning of a compliant man who presented no threat and was surrounded by members of the riot squad. This is being investigated by the Ombudsman and police.

The Taser was introduced in NSW in 2001 but was used only about 50 times by two specialist units until the start of the trial when sergeants and inspectors at each of the 80 police commands were given access. Today 8000 police officers are trained to use the weapon. Since its introduction, 26 officers have been disciplined for not following police operating procedures, and the NSW Ombudsman has had 14 complaints.

Police promised stringent oversight during the trial, including the use of a video camera attached to the weapon and a review of each use by the Deputy Commissioner, Dave Owens.

Even before the trial had ended the then premier, Nathan Rees, said it had been successful and all general duties police would be trained to use the weapon. In fact, the trial highlighted problems that critics had been warning of for years.

There were cases of people being hit by a Taser as many as six times, and others where police appeared to use the weapon to make argumentative but non-threatening people comply with directions.

In one case a sergeant drew his Taser when he encountered two young men spray painting. He drew the weapon, he later said, because one of the vandals was carrying an extendable paint roller and he was ''unsure what their reaction would be to his presence''. He did not fire the weapon.