Concerns over rise in police taser use on children

Speaking at an event in Westminster, Anna Edmundson, senior policy and public affairs adviser at the Children's Rights Alliance for England (Crae), warned that that there has been a "marked" increase in the use by police of tasers - a weapon used to deliver electric shocks - on children in the capital.

Addressing a panel made up of five young people and Labour's shadow minister for London Andy Slaughter, Edmundson said that Crae is concerned about tasers because they inflict "intolerable pain".

She said that nationally there was a 25 per cent increase in the use of tasers on children between 2013 and 2015, but in London there has been a 12-fold increase.

??She said that in 2008 tasers were "used" - a definition that includes a taser being removed from the holster, aimed, or discharged - nine times on children in London. In 2012 they were used 53 times and in 2015 they were used 125 times, including being fired three times at children.

In the first nine months of 2016 there have been 108 uses on children including being fired four times. Extrapolated across the entire 12 months, this indicates there could be a rise of as much as 33 per cent this year.

??"The youngest person on who the taser was used was only 11 years old," she said.

"In just eight years we have seen a 12-fold increase in the use of tasers on children and it is for that reason we would urge this enquiry to get the Metropolitan Police Service (Met) to look at this increase and understand what is going on," she said.

???"We are not convinced that police are only using tasers on children when it is actually necessary. That is what child rights requires and we don't think it is happening." ??

Edmundson also warned that there has been an increase in tasers used on children nationally, increasing 25 per cent between 2013 and 2015. The national findings are due to be published in a new report from Crae next month. 

She also raised concerns over children being detained in police custody in London and the use of strip-searches.

She warned that more than 7,000 children were detained in police custody by the Met Police overnight in 2014/15, including three girls aged 11, despite the law stating children should not be held overnight.

Meanwhile, in the first nine months of 2016 a total of 414 children were subjected to thorough searches, with 52 being "intimate searches where intimate parts were exposed".

"The youngest child was 13 years old. In just under half of the cases where children were strip-searched and parts exposed was an appropriate adult or parent present," she said.

"We think that strip-searching is humiliating, it is degrading, and it is often a really traumatic experience for children, particularly for children who may have been subject to abuse and violence themselves.

"We are extremely worried at the moment that the strip-searching of children across England, but in particular London, is not happening in accordance with the safeguarding procedures that are laid down in law to minimise that stress and harm to children."

The session on child rights in the youth justice system in London was one of five sessions to take place during the youth-led enquiry on Friday.

There were also sessions on children's rights in the capital around mental health, children in care and care leavers, young refugees and migrants and housing and homelessness.

It was hosted by Peer Outreach Workers - a group of young people from London that influence the mayor's policies - in partnership with the Parliamentary Outreach Team and the Education and Youth Team in City Hall.