Policing Large Scale Disorder: Lessons from the disturbances of ...

Ev w20 Home Affairs Committee: Evidence
various police forces engaged in containing the recent disturbances should be commended for handling the
situation without having recourse to additional weaponry. This notwithstanding, Amnesty International UK and
Omega have concerns about the use of non-standard technologies.
5. Previous evidence to this committee 7 has revealed that police chiefs have considerable discretion to
select the equipment in use by their force. There is nothing in statute that specifies what the police can or
cannot use. Indeed, Section 54 of the Firearms Act of 1968 enables police officers to “purchase or acquire
firearms and ammunition for the public service without holding a certificate”. Statutory Guidance—the 2003
Home Office Code of Practice on Police use of Firearms and Less Lethal Weapons, sections 3.2 and 4.1—
which Chief Police Officers must “have regard to”, gives them responsibility for “the acquisition of weapons
requiring special authorisation for use in their force areas” and the power to decide “what types of weapons
need to be available within their forces”.
6. The UK’s selection and testing process is widely regarded as one of the best in the world, with considerable
technical and medical assessment. It uses a needs based, standards based process, testing technologies against
operational requirements (eg for accuracy and precision) with technologies that fail to meet these standards not
being authorised for use. It then subjects them to a separate medical assessment, including their impact on
vulnerable population groups, before seeking Ministerial approval for their deployment.
7. Amnesty International UK and Omega are very concerned that this rigorous process, carefully developed
over a number of years, can be so easily bypassed. Police chiefs have the ability to deploy equipment that may
not have been given Ministerial approval, nor have passed the operational requirement test or meet the required
standards of accuracy and consistency. Indeed, the equipment may not have been tested at all, nor had specific
safeguards and guidance put in place for its use.
8. The deployment of the wireless electroshock projectile, the Extended Range Electro-Muscular Projectile
(XREP), in the Raoul Moat case in 2010, is one incident which highlights these concerns. Testing
commissioned by the UK’s own testing and selection agency, HOSDB, 8 and published in 2009, had found
the XREP to be inaccurate at 20 metres and to vary considerably in the length of electric shock delivered.
Whilst some rounds were “electrically dead”, others delivered an electric shock for “more than five minutes
after being activated”. 9 Further testing in 2011 confirmed that the projectile was highly inaccurate, unable to
hit the target at 12 metres, let alone the 30 meters advertised. 10
9. Allowing forces to use unapproved equipment asks them to make judgements on the medical and other
impacts and risk of weapons that even medical specialists are sometimes hard-pushed to do. It also risks
exposing officers to the potential dangers of using untried and ineffective weapons. Under these circumstances
it is difficult to see how the police can discharge their legal obligation to ensure that the use of equipment is
lawful, neccessary, reasonable and proportionate.
— We recommend all necessary changes are put in place to ensure that Police Chiefs are only able to
deploy technologies which have gone through a full testing, selection and evaluation process and
received Ministerial approval.
— One way of working towards this would be through a revised Code of Practice on Police Use of
Firearms and Less Lethal Weapons. Consultations on revisions to the 2003 version of this Code were
held in 2009. The Home Office has subsequently advised that “work on a revised version has been
put on hold whilst Home Office officials work with key partners to understand how the Code’s of
Practice are aligned with the onset of the Strategic Policing Requirement”. Amnesty International
UK and Omega recommend that the review is restarted and these points are made explicit in the
revised Code.
Guidance on Electro-Shock and Distance Weapons
10. Amnesty International UK and the Omega Research Foundation agree with the Home Affairs Select
Committee recommendation that “the police continue their self-imposed ban on the use of Taser in public
protest situations. More generally we urge the police to reject the use of “distance weapons” in policing
demonstrations. Instead of investment in expensive equipment to give the police “distance” while policing
large scale protests, we suggest that the money could be better spent on training for front-line officers and in
the planning of operations, removing the need for such “distance weapons”.
11. The use of electroshock devices for crowd control presents several difficulties, including; the risk of
danger to officers if the device does not incapacitate or if s/he is overwhelmed by the crowd, the danger of
hitting individuals other than the target, the risk of inducing panic in the crowd more generally and difficulty
ensuring the timely provision of medical assistance to individuals suffering adverse consequences.
7 Home Affairs Committee (2011). Fifth Report: Police use of Taser. See, for example, Memorandum from the Parliamentary
Under Secretary of State for Crime Prevention to the Chair, Home Office Select Committee
8 The Home Office Scientific Development Branch, now known as CAST, the Centre for Applied Science and Technology
9 Sherman, D and Bir, C (2009). A test methodology for the complete characterisation fo the Taser XREP Munition paper presented
to the 2009 Ettlingen Symposium on Less Lethal Weapons.
10 Kunz, S; Graw, M Peschel, O and Grove, N (2011). “Long-distance Conducted Electrical Weapon XREP function and ballistic
features” in sixth European Symposium on Non-Lethal Weapons 16–18 May 2011, Ettlingen, Germany