FAQ Details
Taser - 303/12
Dated: 07 Jun 2011
Date of request: 20/03/2012
Date of response: 05/04/2012
Provision of information held by Northumbria Police made under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the 'Act')(FOIA)
Thank you for your email dated 30 March 2012 in which you made a request for access to certain information which may be held by Northumbria Police.
As you may be aware the purpose of the Act is to allow a general right of access to information held by a Public Authority (including the Police), subject to certain limitations and exemptions.
You asked:
The data requested is for 2009, 2010 and 2011.
How many arrests took place in your force area during the requested periods.
How many officers were assaulted in your force during the requested periods.
How many members of the public made complaints or taken civil action against your force of excessive use of force during the requested periods.
Have any officers or staff in your force ever been investigated for allegations of excessive or inappropriate use of Taser during interactions with members of the public (please separate purely procedural issues such as hot hand over and booking out issues).
Have any officers or staff in your force ever been disciplined over allegations of excessive or inappropriate use of Taser.
Which officer do you train and equip to use Taser, 1/Firearms officer Only, 2/Firearms officers and specialist units only, 3/Firearms officer, specialist units and others (name dept i.e patrol officers.)
When was Taser introduced to your force.
In response:
We have now had the opportunity to fully consider your request and I provide a response for your attention.
As advised earlier this request has been aggregated with your previous request, FOI 9264/12 - Taser, due to cost and time implications as it refers to the same subject area.
Following receipt of your request, searches were conducted with the Corporate Development, Professional Standards, Legal and Operations Departments of Northumbria Police. I can confirm that the information you have requested is held by Northumbria Police.
I have decided to disclose the located information to you as follows.
2009 - 81,747
2010 - 73,649
2011 - 70,0592009 - 646
2010 - 431
2011 - 326
The offences above may include offences where the officer was not at work as this was not specified in your request. To break down further would entail exemptions being applied due to cost/time implications.2009 - 157
2010 - 125
2011 - 118
Northumbria Police have not received any civil claims for excessive use of force relating to tasers.2009 - 5
2010 - 3
2011 - 02009 - 0
2010 - 0
2011 - 0Firearms Officer and Specialist Unit (Area Commands) only.
Taser was brought in 2005, with extended use from 2007.
The information we have supplied to you is likely to contain intellectual property rights of Northumbria Police. Your use of the information must be strictly in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 (as amended) or such other applicable legislation. In particular, you must not re-use this information for any commercial purpose.
How to complain
If you are unhappy with our decision or do not consider that we have handled your request properly and we are unable to resolve this issue informally, you are entitled to make a formal complaint to us under our complaints procedure which can be found at: http://www.northumbria.police.uk/foi/disclosurelog/foicomprights.asp
If you are still unhappy after we have investigated your complaint and reported to you the outcome, you may complain directly to the Information Commissioner’s Office and request that they investigate to ascertain whether we have dealt with your request in accordance with the Act.