Editorial: Police taser - 'Any use of force carries its own risk'

THE taser stun gun has been a controversial addition to the police armoury since it was approved for use by forces in Britain.

From the day one was first fired at a suspect - a criminal carrying two hand guns in London - seven years ago almost to the day, questions have been raised about the weapon's legitimacy as a law enforcement tool.

Those concerns have been fuelled in recent days by the shooting of Raoul Moat with a shotgun-style taser, a newly developed version that is still undergoing UK safety tests.

Questions about whether the use of the taser could have possibly caused the fugitive to accidentally fire the gun he was apparently holding to his head have yet to be answered, although an investigation is underway.

It is against this background that details have emerged of Lothian and Borders Police's use of a taser on a knifeman in Broxburn.

In this case, the weapon was used to disarm the man who had forced his way into his victim's home and barricaded her inside.

The parallels between this and the Moat case are slight, but both put the behaviour of police when dealing with a threat to the public in the tensest of circumstances under the microscope.

The main concern about tasers centres on the alleged health risk they pose to those who are shot.

The manufacturers say they cause no long term injury, while Amnesty International points to 334 cases in seven years in the US in which they say people have died after being shot by the weapons.

Any use of force undeniably carries its own risks. The question is whether that force is justified and proportionate.

That can only be judged on a case-by-case basis, with a full investigation carried out each time a taser is fired.

The fact that Lothian and Borders Police have used tasers on only a handful of occasions - compared to more than 700 times in Northumbria - should give us confidence that they are being used appropriately.

Certainly, all the evidence in the case we highlight today leads us to believe the force did the right thing when faced with a man who was holding a woman hostage.

The fact that British police are among the few in the world that are not routinely armed with guns is quite rightly a matter of pride in this country.

It is partly down to giving the police the option of less lethal alternatives such as tasers that this is possible.