The company that supplied the Tasers used by police in the stand-off with gunman Raoul Moat has had its licence revoked, the British Home Office said today.
Home Secretary Theresa May revoked Pro-Tect Systems’s licence to supply the weapons after it “breached its licence by supplying X12 Tasers direct to police that were only available for supply to the Home Office Science and Development branch”.
The firm also “breached rules governing the secure transport of the devices and ammunition”, the Home Office said.
The X12 Taser guns use XRep ammunition and were referred to as XRep Tasers at the opening of the inquest into Mr Moat’s death.
The move means Pro-Tect Systems, the only supplier of Tasers in the United Kingdom, will no longer be allowed to import and sell Tasers. In a letter to the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee, Crime Prevention Minister James Brokenshire said a short-term authority has been granted to allow the firm to dispose of its remaining stock.
There was no suggestion that any blame should be attached to the officers involved in the stand-off with Mr Moat, and the Home Office has stressed that police could use any weapon they saw fit as long as its use was “lawful, reasonable and proportionate”.
The XRep Taser, which is fired from a 12-gauge shotgun, was being tested by the Home Office before being approved for use by police forces in England and Wales. The firm’s breach of the licence, first reported by Sky News, stems from the company supplying the Tasers directly to police forces, when it was only licensed to supply them to the Home Office for testing.
Armed police fired two Tasers at Moat in an “effort to stop him taking his own life” at the Riverside park area in Rothbury, Northumberland, in the early hours of July 10th, an inquest at Newcastle Civic Centre was told.
The stand-off with the former nightclub doorman brought to an end one of the biggest manhunts in British history, triggered when Moat shot his former girlfriend, Samantha Stobbart (22), killed her new boyfriend, Chris Brown (29), and blinded Pc David Rathband (42).
But the precise sequence of events regarding the discharge of the XRep Tasers in relation to Moat firing his sawn-off shotgun has not been established and is under investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC).
Pro-Tect Systems said it could not comment while the IPCC investigation was going on.
Earlier today, Mr Moat’s brother, Angus, said officers used his brother as a “guinea pig”.
“They had not used them before, and that was not the time or the place to conduct an experiment,” he said. Mr Moat said the family was still waiting for the results of the second postmortem.
PA