This article examines the legal limits on police use of Tasers in light of the High Court’s decision in Curwen v Chief Constable of Cumbria Constabulary [2026]. Tasers, as potentially lethal weapons, should only ever be deployed where there is a genuine and proportionate threat to public or police safety, not merely to secure compliance or prevent escape. Drawing on successful claims brought against police forces on behalf of injured clients, I highlight concerns about inappropriate Taser use, inadequate officer training, and the need for stronger safeguards to uphold the British principle of policing by consent.
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What is Going Wrong With Police Taser Training?
“The British model of ‘policing by consent’ is based on the principle that the power of the police comes from the common consent of the public, as opposed to the power of the state. The police service in England and Wales has long been generally unarmed. The use of firearms by the police should always be a last resort, considered only where there is a serious risk to public or police safety. However, where an operational need arises, authorised firearms officers should be available to be deployed.”
- College of Policing Code of Practice on Armed Policing and Police Use of Less Lethal Weapons, January 2020 (1.3.1 “Use of Force by Police Officers”).
The Curwen Judgment and Police Use of Force
In its recent judgment in the case of Curwen v Chief Constable of Cumbria Constabulary [2026] EWHC 115 (KB) (23 January 2026) the High Court addressed the law in relation to Police uses of force in effecting arrests, and specifically in relation to the use of Taser weapons.
Police use of force is governed by the Common Law, Section 3 of the Criminal Law Act 1967 and Section 117 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984.
Police officers are also expected to adhere to the College of Policing Conflict management skills and National Police Chiefs’ Council policies. All of these sources of law and guidance revolve around the principles of common sense and proportionality. The College of Policing’s “Authorised Professional Practice” requires that officers must consider the immediacy and gravity of the threat, and the potential for their use of force to have “adverse consequences”, and they are required to identity the minimum level of force required to attain their objective.
What Is a Police Taser and Why Is It Classified as a Firearm?
A Taser is a conducted (a.k.a. conductive) energy device designed to cause temporary neuro-muscular incapacitation in the target through the administering of 50,000 volt electrical pulses. Under the Firearms Act 1968 a Taser is classed as a firearm and as a prohibited weapon. It is potentially lethal.
Understanding the Different Types of Taser Deployment
Tasers have a number of different deployment modes/ uses, ranging from being used to threaten (which is in itself an act of assault) to being used to attack/ incapacitate the target (an act of battery). These different modes are classed in Police literature as follows –
- Drawing: The act of withdrawing a taser from its holster (i.e the beginning of a threat).
- Aiming: Aiming the taser at the subject.
- Arcing: Squeezing the trigger without a cartridge attached, causing electric sparks to fly as an audio/ visual threat.
- Red Dotting: Training the red laser sight on a subject, which is generally the final act before firing, and should be accompanied by a verbal warning to that effect.
- Drive Stun: Placing the taser into direct contact with the subject’s skin and firing it, inflicting intense but localised pain (and which does not cause muscular incapacitation).
- Firing: Pulling the trigger. This fires two probes or barbs at the subject, which are designed to imbed in the skin and remain attached until removed. Naturally this causes puncture wounds in the person’s skin, but the real harm is caused by the electrical charge which for five seconds then surges from the taser cartridge along insulated copper wires which connect the device to the barbs, and into the person’s body.
The Serious Risks and Potentially Lethal Consequences of Taser Use
Thus, are people reduced, temporarily, to the status of puppets on the end of the taser’s strings: dancing to the agonising electric current, unable to control their limbs and (in many cases) collapsing in an uncontrolled fall to the ground.
Uncontrolled falls of course give rise to the risk of severe secondary injuries, especially head injuries, and the electric-shock can cause heart arrhythmia; not for nothing, therefore, are tasers classed as “Less Lethal Weapons” – the emphasis I am suggesting in that phrase being on ‘lethal’ rather than ‘less’. Paragraph 1.3.1 of that Code explicitly provides that the use of firearms (which includes tasers) should be a last resort “considered only where there is a serious risk to public or police safety.” (The full section is that quotation with which I began this blog post).
The Legal Test: Taser Use Must Be Based on Genuine Threat
As Mrs Justice Dias summarised in the Curwen judgment (paragraph 29) –
“A Taser should only be used as a proportionate way of mitigating a threat through temporary incapacitation. It should not be used solely to inflict severe pain or simply to compel compliance with instructions where compliance is not linked to such a threat or where the threat has been reduced to a level where Taser use would no longer be proportionate.”
I have emphasised in that section of the judgment the word “threat” (used three times in quick succession by the judge). “Threat” is the key word in taser deployment, in my opinion, not ‘convenience’ or ‘frustration’ – but all too often, in my experience, taser- wielding officers do act out of those later two motives, rather than because there is any threat – or any level of threat proportionate to justify the pulling of a taser trigger, with all the catastrophic consequences it can potentially unleash.
Real-Life Cases of Unlawful Police Taser Use
This can be amply illustrated by means of two substantial damages claims which I and my team have won for our clients against Lincolnshire Police and Nottinghamshire Police respectively, and I was particularly pleased that BBC News recently highlighted that latter case, involving my client Dimitri Moses – recognising my expertise as a specialist in Police misconduct cases.
Both Hamish, in the first case, and Dimitri, in the second, posed no threat at all to the Police or the public – they were both unarmed and running away from officers who wanted to arrest them for low-level offences (a driving offence in Hamish’s case and a public order offence in Dimitri’s). The officers pursuing them tasered them in the back simply in order to ‘capture’ them – and in Dimitri’s case did so whilst he was in the process of climbing over a 6-foot-high gate, resulting in spinal fractures when he then inevitably plunged to the ground. Those injuries could so easily have been far more severe.
Are Police Officers Receiving Adequate Taser Training?
Highlighted in the Curwen judgment is the fact that Police taser training currently consists of a 4-day course (at most; the BBC report mentioned above says it is a 3-day course) and that the tasers used in training are not “live.” Velcro probes are used in place of actual barbs and no electrical shocks are delivered, or in the words of Mrs Justice Dias “Taser officers will therefore never have experienced for themselves the power of a Taser…” That may well account for the appallingly naive comment of one trigger- happy taser cop in another case I handled some years ago: that use of a taser was “at the same level as just putting your hands on somebody”.
Why Police Taser Policy and Training Need Reform
Given this brief and inadequate training, it is clear to me that the current system is not working. Exposure to ‘live’ tasers is almost certainly required, combined with more extensive training and thinking about when such weapons should be used.
The introduction of a code making it clear that it is forbidden to use tasers merely to apprehend suspects, unless their escape would place others in genuine risk of harm to “life or limb” (i.e similar to the criteria governing the power of Police Officers to force entry to our homes under Section 17(1(e) of the Police & Criminal Evidence Act) is essential, and if properly implemented would help to prevent the type of horrendous injuries suffered by innocent people such as Hamish and Dimitri.
Conclusion: Policing by Consent, Not Policing by Electrical Conductivity
In conclusion: the law simply does not allow the Police to taser you for ‘disobedience’ or seeking to avoid arrest, unless in doing so you are causing a real risk of harm to the officers or other members of the public. The trigger word must be ‘threat’ not ‘non-compliance”. As the College of Policing Code of Practice enjoins, these weapons must be used defensively (for genuine public protection), not offensively (to enforce the authority of the State); the British tradition of ‘Policing by Consent’ requires no less.
Let us not end up living in a world of ‘Policing by Electrical-Conductivity’.
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Contact the Expert Police Misconduct Solicitor
Iain Gould is a solicitor specialising in complaints, claims and civil actions against the Police. With over 30 years of experience and a national reputation, he has successfully sued all 43 police forces in England and Wales challenging abuse of power and securing rightful compensation
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