Met officer who Tasered girl, 10, twice within seconds says it was 'best option'
A Metropolitan Police officer who twice Tasered a 10-year-old girl within eight seconds today claimed the fact she was a child "raised" the risk of the situation.
PC Jonathan Broadhead told a misconduct panel that he still believes the use of a Taser was the "best option" available to him. The officer and a colleague went to the girl’s family home after her mum had reported that she had threatened her with a pair of garden shears and a hammer.
However, a misconduct hearing was told that, having had the front door calmly opened by the child’s mother, PC Broadhead ran into the house before shouting at the girl and Tasering her twice within eight seconds. The "shocked" mother of the child, both of whom are Black, told the misconduct panel she never would have called the police had she known what would happen to her daughter.
The police officer told the misconduct hearing that using the Taser was the 'best option' available to him (Ian Vogler / Daily Mirror)However, PC Broadhead told the misconduct hearing at Palestra House in central London today that he still feels the use of a Taser was the "best option" available to him. The officer, who first joined the force in 2009 and worked at the Met’s Emergency Response team based in Brixton, south London, until the incident in January 2021, added he had been "panicked" and "worried" about what the child - known as Child A - might do.
Asked by his lawyer Robert Morris what the level of risk was following calls from Child A’s mother about her being threatened by her daughter with garden shears and a hammer, PC Broadhead said: “It raises your risk assessment on the way to the call. The fact it [the information from the call] refers to a ten-year-old child… That raises it [the risk] as well. You are thinking how bad it must be for a mother to feel the need to call 999. I felt almost instantly Child A grabbed the shears and got up.
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“I was worried about what her intentions were, why she had seen the officers and picked the shears up and what she was going to do with them.” PC Broadhead said he had discharged his Taser - twice - so quickly as Child A was turning the corner of the staircase in her home, with him not knowing where she was going and whether anyone else was in the house.
He added he felt as though she might have a ‘plan’ as she walked "purposefully" up the stairs. And like his colleague PC Steve Morgan, the other officer on the callout who spoke in front of the panel yesterday, PC Broadhead asserted that the child had a "height advantage" in having climbed up the initial stairs of the staircase of her home.
Asked if he had any fears as Child A walked up the stairs, PC Broadhead said: “I was still worried of other people in the house, whether she would hurt herself of others - me and PC Morgan. Her being higher up gives her the height advantage.”
Asked what risks the child posed, he added: “There’s different rooms she knows, little nooks and crannies, hidey-holes where she could wait for officers. She [was not] reacting to the Taser… [I thought] she’s intent on doing something. It was common law self defence. I was worried she would assault us.
“I felt I had tried [to reason with Child A] with the verbal comments. I felt she was not going to listen to officers. I didn’t know what her intentions were with the shears… It was as if she had a plan or something.”
Questioned on whether, with the power of hindsight, he would have acted any differently in a similar situation if it would occur again, PC Broadhead said: “I still think Taser was the best option. I did feel it necessary and proportionate.” But he added: “If I knew that the following 34 months were going to be as they were, I think it would definitely make me reassess use of force. I was concerned for my safety and the safety of Child A.” The hearing continues.
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