Police in Northern Ireland will not be issued with controversial Taser stun guns in the immediate future, it was announced today.
Police Service of Northern Ireland chief constable Sir Hugh Orde said: "My decision is that it will not be deployed for the time being."
Sir Hugh Orde with human rights lawyers at the launch of their major report on PSNI compliance with the Human Rights Act. Image: Paul Faith/ PA.
He said it was his personal decision and added: "I think I am taking a risk by standing back."
Nevertheless the decision was that the weapon will not be used by his officers "until operational procedures and guidelines have been agreed".
Sir Hugh said that if tasers were eventually issued for use in Northern Ireland there would be serious limitations.
"I have no intention of issuing tasers routinely to ordinary police officers. All we are talking about, in Northern Ireland, is potentially issuing them to the most highly trained firearms officers as an alternative," he said.
He made the announcement at the Belfast launch of a major report monitoring the PSNI's compliance with the Human Rights Act during the past year.
The annual report , which made a series of recommendations for improvements by the service, was critical on a number of fronts.
His comments in part pre-empted the report, produced for the third year running by leading human rights lawyers Keir Starmer QC and Jane Gordon for the Policing Board which holds the PSNI to account, and which expressed concerns about the use of tasers and recommended they only be deployed as a last ditch alternative to the use of lethal force — opening fire with conventional firearms.
It further recommended the policing board should satisfy itself that "the PSNI had properly addressed the legal and human rights framework within which taser can be used and, in particular, that it had devised clear and robust policy, guidance and training to ensure that any use of taser in Northern Ireland fully complied with the requirements of the European Convention on Human Rights and the Human Rights Act."
In addition, it said any use should be planned and controlled to minimise to the greatest extent possible recourse to its use.
It was the first report produced by the lawyers since Sinn Fein took its seats on the Policing Board and its members refused to endorse it — because there was no order against the use of tasers — or plastic bullets even against the young.