Smash hit

She said: “I am proud that we have one of the few police services around the world that do not regularly carry firearms and I want to keep it that way.

“But every day the police put themselves in danger to protect us, the public. They deserve our support, so I want to give the police the tools they tell me they need to confront dangerous people."

Oliver Sprague, Amnesty International’s UK’s arms programme director, said the use of the guns should be restricted to “life threatening” or “very dangerous” situations.

He said: “Amnesty recognises the very difficult job police officers have to do and we don’t actually oppose the use of Tasers as long as it’s by a limited number of highly-trained specialist officers, responding to genuinely life-threatening or very dangerous situations.”

The Home Office trial with 10 forces found the threat of being Tasered was often enough to stop a violent incident.

Although Tasers were deployed by forces on more than 600 occasions in the past year, they were only used 93 times, the Home Office said.

The decision to purchase the guns was welcomed by the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), which said trials showed in the majority of cases that Tasers helped police resolve incidents without resorting to other weapons.

Derek Talbot, ACPO spokesman on Tasers and Assistant Chief Constable of Northamptonshire Police, said: “This reinforces the value of Taser as a useful tool to make the public and officers safer and to resolve potentially violent situations effectively and rapidly.

“The conclusions of this trial provide further evidence that Taser is a proportionate, low risk means of resolving incidents where the public or officers face severe violence or the threat of such violence which cannot safely be dealt with by other means,” he said.

A report by the Independent Police Complaints Commission, released yesterday, said that 35 complaints had been made against the use of Tasers since they were introduced in September 2004.

Of the 15 most serious investigated by the IPCC, the majority concerned the use of the weapons in the “drive-stun” mode, where the gun is fired at point-blank range.

The sharp barbs which carry the electric shock were fired directly at the head, chest, neck and shoulder blades of suspects, the report found.

Police guidance suggests Tasers should not be used in drive-stun mode against the head or neck unless “absolutely necessary” to save lives because of the “increased risk” of injury, the report said.

The police watchdog received a complaint from a man who had a Taser fired at his head from point-blank range, who said it caused him to suffer from amnesia.

Suspects have had to go to hospital to have barbs removed from their skin - one from his back and another his thumb.

In 2005, Hazel Blears, who is now Communities and Local Government Secretary, expressed reservations about the increased use of Tasers.

She said she would not want to see the guns issued to every officer and rejected the idea of their use as an “everyday weapon”.

She told Police Review: “Taser is quite a dangerous weapon. It is a less lethal option other than firearms, but it is not an everyday weapon used in everyday circumstances.

“My feeling at the moment is that it is substantially different from handcuffs and a truncheon, and I would not want to see everyone on the streets having that kind of weapon.”

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