Provision of information held by Northumbria Police made under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the 'Act')
As you may be aware the purpose of the Act is to allow a general right of access to information held at the time of a request, by a Public Authority (including the Police), subject to certain limitations and exemptions.
You asked:
1. How many of your officers are currently carrying a Taser, and how many of these officers are firearms officers?
2. How many times have Tasers (including both X26 and X2) been
• Used in drive-stun or angled drive-stun mode
• Fired, in the past five years (2015-2019)? Can you please break these down for each year
3. How many times has the deployment of a Taser led to serious injury? Can you please specify whether it was a primary or secondary injury and whether the Taser was used in either one of the stun modes or fired.
4. Have any of your officers been seriously injured following an incident that required the use of Taser in the past five years (2015-2019)?
5. Has any of your Taser officers had their permit withdrawn in the past five years (2015-2019)?
6. Has any of your Taser officers been charged with assault following an incident that included the deployment of a Taser in the past five years (2015-2019)?
In Response:
We have now had the opportunity to fully consider your request and I provide a response for your attention.
Following receipt of your request, searches were conducted with the Operations Department of Northumbria Police. I can confirm that the information you have requested is held by Northumbria Police.
I am able to disclose the located information to you as follows.
To note – we are interpreting point 1 to mean how many officers are authorised to carry taser, and our response reflects that.
1. 852 of which 140 are AFOs.
2.
Year Fired Drive Stun Angled
2015 27 0 0
2016 23 0 0
2017 28 0 0
2018 50 0 0
2019 51 0 0
3. None.
4. no
5. Yes – all were reinstated after debrief or training refresh.
6. No
