Licence of Moat-siege Taser firm revoked

Pro-Tect Systems provided shotgun-style X12 Tasers and XRep ammunition directly to two police forces, despite the fact they were still under testing by the Home Office and had not been officially approved.

Home Secretary Theresa May has scrapped the firm's licence to import and sell Tasers following an investigation into the use of the weapons at the culmination of one of Britain's biggest manhunts.

Armed police fired two Tasers at Moat in an "effort to stop him taking his own life" in the Riverside park area in Rothbury, Northumberland, in the early hours of July 10, an inquest at Newcastle Civic Centre was told.

The Tasers can deliver up to 20 seconds of electric shock in bullet-like capsules from a standard 12-gauge shotgun or a X12 Taser.

Mrs May revoked Pro-Tect's licence after inquiries revealed it supplied the Tasers, which should have only been supplied to the Home Office Science and Development Branch, directly to Northumbria Police and a second force, "contrary to their authority". The firm also breached the rules "governing the secure transport of the devices and ammunition", the Home Office said.

In a letter to the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee, Crime Prevention Minister James Brokenshire said: "In view of the serious nature of the breaches, (the Home Secretary] has decided not to renew the company's current authorities."

Mr Brokenshire added that the police forces concerned were deemed to be Crown servants under the 1968 Firearms Act, and so "were lawfully able to acquire these items". No blame has been attached to the officers involved.

The stand-off with former nightclub doorman Moat ended a seven-day manhunt which begun when he shot his former girlfriend, Samantha Stobbart, killed her new boyfriend, Chris Brown, and blinded Pc David Rathband.

But the precise sequence of events regarding the firing and effect of the XRep Tasers has not yet been established, and is under investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC).

Steve Reynolds, of the IPCC, said: "The review of tactics will consider the deployment and use of the XRep Taser."

Pro-Tect Systems said it could not comment while the IPCC investigation was ongoing.

But human rights charity Amnesty International said it was "seriously concerned that the Taser XRep appears to have been used without it having gone through the official weapons testing and approval process".

Oliver Sprague, director of the charity's arms programme, said: "A weapon like this should not be in the UK police force's

arsenal until it has passed all the necessary checks."

And Moat's brother, Angus, said officers had used his brother as a "guinea pig".

"They had not used the (weapons) before, and that was not the time or the place to conduct an experiment," he said.

He added that the family still have concerns about the sequence of events which culminated in Moat's death, and are awaiting the results of a second post-mortem examination.

Simon Chesterman, of the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), said Tasers remain an important part of the police's arsenal and that the Home Secretary's decision "does not affect the police use of this important tactical option."

He said: "Taser is a critical and recognised less-lethal option to resolve high-risk situations involving extreme violence or the threat of such violence."