A man with a history of depression and alcohol problems died as a result of severe burns after being shot with a Taser by a police officer while doused with petrol, an inquest has heard.



Andrew Pimlott, 32, had poured the fuel over himself and was holding a match when a police officer fired the weapon at him during a domestic incident at his parents’ house.

On the first day of his inquest, a pathologist said it was not possible to establish from medical evidence whether the match or Taser caused Pimlott to catch fire.

The inquest jury was told that the police officer who fired the Taser did not know if his device or the match caused the fire but members of Pimlott’s family said they did not believe he would have set fire to himself.

Relatives wept as they heard Pimlott had asked an ambulance technician to tell his family he loved them if he did not survive his injuries.

Pimlott’s father, Kelvin, had called the police after his son arrived in the back garden of his home in Plymouth, Devon, in breach of a restraining order imposed that day by magistrates after he had caused criminal damage at his parents’ property.

Kelvin Pimlott told the police operator that he had just seen his son pick up a jerry can of fuel and thought he was going to set fire to the house.

Two officers, PCs Pete Hodgkinson and David Beer, responded. A log showed the pair were there for a maximum of 41 seconds before reporting Pimlott on fire.

Neighbours heard screams coming from the garden, saw flames and watched the officers wrap Pimlott in a duvet and spray him with a hosepipe. He died in hospital on 23 April 2013, five days after the incident.

Forensic examiners recovered a single match from the garden, and a box of matches was found in Pimlott’s trouser pocket. Two Taser barb marks were found on his abdomen.

PC Phillip Parish, a colleague of the officers involved, said Hodgkinson did not know what had happened. In a statement read to the court he said: “PC Hodgkinson said something along the lines of: ‘I couldn’t tell you if he was alight before or after I Tasered him’.”

Acting Sgt Gareth Hammett spoke to Hodgkinson soon after. Hammett said: “He had deployed Taser against [Pimlott] to stop him from setting fire to himself but there had been an ignition but [Hodgkinson] did not know what caused the fire.”

PC Jonathan Reed, who trains the Devon and Cornwall force to use Tasers, said officers were warned of the potential dangers of firing the weapon in the presence of flammable liquids.

A pathologist told the hearing it was not possible to say from the medical evidence whether Pimlott had caught fire as a result of being Tasered or from the match.

Dr Russell Delaney, a Home Office pathologist, added: “The possibility of the Taser causing him to drop the flame resulting in ignition cannot be excluded.”

In a statement read in court, ambulance technician James Dyson said: “I asked him what had happened and he said there had been a dispute. I asked him why he covered himself in petrol and he replied: ‘I had wanted to end it all’. He stated the Taser had lit the fire.”

Pimlott’s family wept in court as Dyson continued: “Mr Pimlott told me: ‘If I die I want you to pass a message on to my mother and family, to say that I love them.”

Kelvin Pimlott explained that he thought his son was “calling his bluff” when he grabbed the jerry can. “I think it was a cry for help,” he said.

Andrew’s sister, Marie Smith, said the family were not told a Taser had been involved until days after the incident. “The Taser was not even mentioned to us on the night it happened. There was nothing to suggest he would harm himself. I don’t believe my brother would do that to himself,” she said. “He would not want his family to have that as their last memory of him.”

Pimlott had alcohol problems, and between August 2010 and his death there were 27 recorded incidents involving him and the police. He had been arrested on 12 occasions.

The inquest continues.