More Lincolnshire cops carry tasers than any other force

FOR a small rural police force, but Lincolnshire Police is exceptional for the high proportion of its officers who carry taser.

Around 27 per cent of frontline officers in the force area are routinely armed with the less lethal weapon – more than in any other part of the country, according to PoliceOracle.com.

Nationally, the proportion of officers armed with taser is around 10 per cent. In contrast, in Lincolnshire towns as many as half of all officers out on patrol at any one time could be carrying a taser.

Lincolnshire Police comes closest out of all the 43 forces in England and Wales to achieving the Police Federation’s aim of allowing every frontline officer the option of carrying a taser.

Jon Hassall from the local branch of the Police Federation said colleagues in neighbouring forces are a bit “jealous” of the situation Lincolnshire is in.

“The rural nature of the force means officers have to travel over vast areas, and it could take a long time to get support from colleagues,” he said. “They feel reassured when carrying the less lethal weapon.”

These statistics are in reality more the result of a quirk of history as opposed to arising from any specific factors unique to this area of eastern England.

The county was one of the trial forces when taser was first introduced in Britain seven years ago but because of political disquiet about the weapons in London at the time, many of the tasers the Home Office had already bought went to Lincolnshire rather than the Met, for whom they had apparently been originally intended.

Inspector Mark Garthwaite said: “The high proportion is something we are very conscious of, and it’s a difficult one because some of our peers would suggest we’ve gone too far, but I don’t see it like that.

“I just think it’s very forward thinking on the part of our chief constable.”

He said the latest statistics show in the last three months of 2014 the proportion of “non-discharge” incidents in Lincolnshire – those incidents in which taser was removed from its holster but not fired – was actually lower than the national average.