Show caption A police officer carrying a Taser. Photograph: Andrew Milligan/PA Police Police Taser use in England and Wales rises to rate of 30 times a day Officers used stun guns on 11,294 occasions and fired them 1,755 times, in period when violent crime also rose Alan Travis Thu 13 Apr 2017 07.36 EDT Share on Facebook

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Police officers used Taser stun guns at a rate of 30 times a day last year, figures show. They were used on 11,294 occasions last year, up 9% on 2015, mirroring a recent rise in gun and knife crime in England and Wales.

Home Office figures show police most commonly used Tasers to “red-dot” a suspect – aiming and activating the devices without firing them – doing so 5,744 times. Officers fired Tasers 1,755 times, up 2%.

Tasers, which deliver an electric shock to temporarily incapacitate a suspect, were introduced in Britain in 2003 as a less lethal means to deal with armed suspects. Concerns have been raised about the number of deaths and serious injuries connected with their use.

Last week the American company that produces the devices announced it was changing its name from Taser International to Axon Enterprises and wanted to focus on offering every police officer in the US a free body camera for a year.

Last month the home secretary, Amber Rudd, authorised police forces in England and Wales to replace their single-shot X26 Taser, which is going out of production, with a newer two-shot model, the X2. A Home Office scientific and medical evaluation of the new model acknowledged that use of the old X26 had been accompanied by “a small number of deaths and serious injuries” but said their number was low relative to the number of times the police used the devices.

In August the former Aston Villa footballer Dalian Atkinson died after a clash with police during which he was Tasered three times outside his father’s home in Telford, Shropshire. His family have since appealed for all Taser-equipped police officers to be issued with body cameras to record their use.



The Home Office figures show that 83% of cases of Taser use last year were classed as non-discharge, including the devices being drawn and aimed and suspects “red-dotted”.

The last set of crime figures, published in January, showed a 22% rise in violent crime in England and Wales, including small increases in murders and knife crime, in the 12 months to September last year.