A man who suffered severe injuries after being improperly Tasered by police while celebrating his birthday has received £30,000 in damages.
Dimitri Moses was Tasered on July 10, 2021, while attempting to climb over a gate in Nottingham after fleeing from officers he believed intended to harm him. The incident resulted in him falling, losing consciousness, and fracturing his spine.
The deployment of the Taser contravened established police guidelines, which stipulate that such devices should only be utilized as a proportionate response to a clearly identified threat.
Nottinghamshire Police, which asserted that an officer was attempting to detain Moses for a public order offense, expressed hope that the settlement would provide some comfort to him.
Moses suspects that racial bias played a role in the incident. According to Home Office statistics for 2021-22, Black individuals were about five times more likely than their white counterparts to have Tasers used against them.
Incident Details and Legal Proceedings
Moses recounted that he was at a bar with two friends celebrating his 34th birthday when they were asked to leave due to one friend allegedly violating social distancing rules by dancing away from their table. During this time, one of the security staff reportedly threatened his friend, prompting the friend to engage with three police officers stationed outside.
The situation escalated, leading to an officer, identified in legal documents as PC Butler, pushing Moses across the street towards a shop window, an action captured on CCTV.
„He told me he was giving me to the count of 10 to leave the area, and he put his hand on my throat and pushed me back on the wall across the street,“ Moses stated.
According to Moses’s solicitor, Iain Gould, who specializes in police misconduct cases, Moses began counting to ten, which allegedly provoked Butler, who then lunged at him—a claim that Nottinghamshire Police has denied.
As the confrontation escalated, all three officers surrounded Moses, with two of them seizing him by his arms.
Feeling threatened, Moses decided to flee, running towards Sneinton Market and attempting to climb over a metal gate. While he was approximately 6 feet (1.8 meters) in the air, he was Tasered by an officer identified as PC McClintock, causing him to fall to the ground.
The fall resulted in three fractured vertebrae in his spine, along with injuries to his chest, back, hands, and right shoulder.
Police Defense and Guidelines on Taser Use
In its defense, Nottinghamshire Police claimed that McClintock believed it was necessary to deploy the Taser to prevent Moses’s escape and to safely detain him.
Initially introduced in the UK in 2003 for use solely by firearms officers, Tasers can now be utilized by any police officer who has completed a three-day training course. The College of Policing guidelines specify that Tasers should only be deployed as a proportionate response to an identified threat and should not be used merely to enforce compliance with instructions or procedures.
„There are going to be times when an officer should deploy a Taser, but those are situations where there is a threat to the officer, a member of the public, or to the individual themselves,“ Gould emphasized. „In this particular case, none of those situations applied.“
Nottinghamshire Police maintained that Butler was attempting to detain Moses for a public order offense. However, Moses contended that Butler did not communicate any intention to arrest him at the time of the incident.
Due to the absence of body-worn camera footage and the lack of audio on the CCTV, it was impossible to ascertain the exact dialogue that occurred.
Following the incident, Moses was arrested and charged with a public order offense and resisting arrest, but the Crown Prosecution Service later decided to discontinue the case.
Settlement and Police Response
Moses’s solicitor subsequently filed a civil claim against Nottinghamshire Police, which culminated in a settlement of £30,000 in damages.
In a statement, Nottinghamshire Police acknowledged the complexities of policing and stressed the importance of rectifying mistakes when they occur. They expressed hope that the settlement would provide some comfort to Moses.
The police department also noted that an internal investigation found no evidence suggesting that any conduct was influenced by racial factors.
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Quellen: bbc.co.uk
