Surrey Police Federation backs increase in Taser use

7 August 2017

“Our chief in Surrey, and indeed Sussex, is really supportive of officers carrying a Taser and they want any officers that volunteer for the course to have them.”

Surrey Police are set to triple the number of Police Officers carrying Tasers by 2020 – with potentially over 560 Officers carrying them by this date.

Surrey CC, Nick Ephgrave, recently said that increasing the number of Taser carrying Officers was the right course of action in  the current climate, having been reassured by positive examples of the use of the device where it has prevented escalation of certain incidents.

Mel Warnes, Chair of Surrey Police Federation, developed on how Surrey plans to increase this number.

She said: “We’re currently one year into our 5-year roll out plan, which is a joint plan between Surrey and Sussex Police.

“Across both forces, we have 280 officers a year attending courses. We’re running back to back courses - around 27 a year. Surrey is currently sending one officer per division on each course, making sure the Officers with the priority of being Taser trained are getting onto the courses. We are putting as many people through the training courses as possible.

“Getting more Officers Taser trained is absolutely the right thing to do, with the chief being so supportive it is now just a matter of getting the numbers through the courses. Taser is being used out there on the streets a similar amount to the national average. We’ve got no issues whatsoever at the moment.”