A Met police officer twice tasered a 10-year-old girl in her own home, a misconduct panel has heard.
PC Jonathan Broadhead and a colleague were dispatched to the girl’s home after her mother reported that her daughter had threatened her with garden shears and a hammer in January 2021.
The mother opened the front door to PC Broadhead when he arrived, after which the girl picked up the shears from the ground, according to a description of bodycam footage heard by the panel on Monday.
The officer ran into the house, shouting at the girl to ‘put it down now’, and within 10 seconds had fired his taser at her twice, the hearing was told.
The child, who is black, walked away from PC Broadhead and was ‘moving up the stairs’ when the device was fired, the police watchdog told the panel.
Her mother, who is also black, said her daughter had eaten ‘edibles’ which affected her behaviour, but denied telling police this until after she was arrested.
PC Broadhead did not face any criminal charges following an assessment by the Crown Prosecution Service.
But he is accused of gross misconduct for using force ‘which was not necessary, reasonable and proportionate’, which, if proved, could lead to him being sacked.
The officer admits tasering the girl but denies that it was unnecessary or unreasonable use of force.
His representative told the panel hearing the woman told 999 she was ‘frightened’ and unable to reason with her daughter after taking her phone from her.
Olivia Checa-Dover, from the Independent Office of Police Conduct (IOPC), said: ‘The officer accepts the factual elements. The issue is not whether this happened, but whether it was consistent with the high standards that apply to all police officers.
‘What happened upon arrival is captured on [the officer’s] body worn footage.
‘[Child A] appears to pick something up – now understood to be garden shears – from the floor.
‘The officer instructed her to put them down, which she didn’t do. She walked away from this person, moving up the stairs of the home.
‘The officer didn’t speak to Ms A [her mother]. He advanced into the house, indicating he was a police officer with a taser.
‘[PC Broadhead] is seen using a taser on her as she was on the stairs. He had been at the property for about ten seconds.
Ms Checa-Dover said the child was taken to hospital and held there overnight, before being charged the following day, when three barbs on her body from the taser remained ‘tender’.
She added: ‘Officers are required to consider de-escalation, rather than inflaming the situation. This was a missed opportunity in that regard.’
The mother told the panel she would not have called police had she known what would have happened.
She said: ‘I wanted the police to help me convince [her] to put down the shears and the hammer by talking to her.
‘Everything was very quick. [The officer] charged in front of me, [saying] ‘Taser, taser, taser!’.
‘I felt [my daughter] was scared and she quickly ran up the stairs.
‘As she was running up the stairs, she was shot with the taser. They saw her sitting there with the shears and the hammer and instantly reacted to that.’
The hearing continues.
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