Tasers: Scipione and Kelly should explain or resign

“On 14  June 2009, when announcing the roll-out of Tasers to front-line officers, former Premier Nathan Rees said:

‘The Commissioner has advised that after a successful trial period Tasers should be deployed to front line officers’

“This was reiterated on 16 June when the then Minister for Police Tony Kelly said

‘Tasers have been trialled by senior frontline police since October last year …I am satisfied with Commissioner Andrew Scipione’s advice that after a successful trial period, Tasers should be deployed by frontline police’.

“There can only be two possible interpretations of these statements – either Commissioner Scipione misled his Minister and the then Premier about the success of the trial and covered up the ‘litany or abuses and misuses’ that have now been revealed, or the Minister and the Premier were negligently indifferent to the results of the trial because they had already determined that the roll-out should proceed.

“Either way, the public of New South Wales has been misled. It’s time for someone to be accountable.

“It is not as though the parliament has been indifferent to the problems presented by Tasers.

“At Budget Estimates in 2008 and 2009, the Commissioner and the Minister were questioned intensively about Tasers. They wholeheartedly endorsed the proposal to supply the police with Tasers and were at pains to stress the safeguards that would ensure they could never be misused.

“On 14 October 2008, I asked Commissioner Scipione whether ‘In every instance in which they [Tasers] have been used you believe their use has been justified’.

“The Commissioner, who was under oath, answered, ‘Where a Taser has been used, and a person has been tasered, every use to date has been a justified use of the device’.

“In light of what has now been revealed, either the Commissioner or the former Minister for Police should resign or provide very detailed explanations as to how they concluded that it was appropriate to roll-out Tasers.

“We are not talking about toys, but about potentially lethal weapons. A pre-determined decision to introduce Tasers across the board in the face of significant misuse by the NSW police force suggests a not only a failure of process but a manifest indifference to the safety of the public,” said Ms Hale.

*Taser abuse covered up by police, SMH, 6 July 2010.

Contact: Colin Hesse on 02 9230 3030 or 0401 719 124