Dale Farm eviction: Essex police's use of Tasers at close range criticised

Police say they were threatened as witness says Tasers used with little warning and hit protester not throwing missiles

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• Stephen Bates
• guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 19 October 2011 20.42 BST
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The Dale Farm eviction police operation saw Tasers used on a protester who, a witness said, was not throwing missiles. Link to this video Essex police's tactics in spearheading the eviction of residents and protesters from Dale Farm came under criticism and questioning within hours of the start of the operation, particularly over the use of Tasers at apparently close range during the initial stages of their invasion of the site. The police said they had been deployed to protect public order and members of the public, including those on the site, and that their use of Tasers was in accordance with official guidance and authorised by those in charge of the operation. Their account was, however, immediately contested by one witness, who claimed that a Taser was fired at a short range of a couple of metres, virtually simultaneously with the shouting of a single warning. It was also claimed that the police shouted at neutral observers: "Get back or you are going to get shot." When it came, at dawn, the operation to secure Dale Farm was achieved, despite some minor injuries including a back injury and a nose bleed, with much less violence than had been predicted – or was claimed – by some of the Travellers. The site's solidarity campaign quoted Ali Saunders, a supporter, saying: "This attack on the lives of Dale Farm families will fall upon the conscience of all of the British people. The police showed no regard for the safety and dignity of residents, or the proportionality of the force used. Basildon sees Travellers as second-class citizens who they want to chase out of the area." Both the Anglican bishop of Chelmsford, the Rt Rev Stephen Cottrell, and the local Catholic parish priest, Father Dan Mason, expressed concern at the violence and where the dispossessed residents would go. Medical staff were deployed at the scene. An ambulance service spokesman said there had been six people attended, including three for smoke inhalation and one with chest pains, and that most had declined hospital treatment. It was, in fact, a classic operation: an invasion through the back of the site, instead of a frontal assault on the gantry at the front gate, and a determined march, line abreast, by officers in riot gear, wearing helmets and visors and carrying shields, to cut off that entrance from the rear. If the remaining travellers were, as they said, expecting the clearance to start at 8am, the fact that it started an hour earlier was not exactly a revolutionary tactic. Nor could it have been unexpected, following the ending of protracted court proceedings on Monday and the breakdown of talks with the council following a walkout by the Travellers on Tuesday afternoon. The start of the operation on Wednesday morning was both predicted and briefed about by the council. The Essex force called in police and civilian reinforcements from several other police authorities, to secure the site so that the bailiffs could enter. They conceded that the entire operation is likely to take some days. What was unexpected was the use of Tasers on protesters as the police, several hundred strong, pushed down makeshift barriers to enter the site in twilight at the start of the operation. Essex police spokesman Superintendent Trevor Roe insisted at a mid-morning press conference that they were deployed "on two occasions almost simultaneously" by a pair of officers threatened with serious violence by an individual. "They deployed the Taser just around that specific incident," he said. But a freelance photographer, Jason Parkinson, who filmed the incident, told the Guardian that the police had only shouted a warning once, and had hit a demonstrator who was not throwing missiles. "It was within two metres – people were very close. The police were on the offensive and they were not under threat," he said. "I did not see what happened to him afterwards but I believe he was one of those arrested." Parkinson claimed to have heard police shout: "Fuck off or you'll be shot." Roe conceded that Tasers were not recommended for use in civil disorder situations, but said the officers concerned were trained in their use and understood the regulations for firing them. He told journalists that the police had come under fire from demonstrators throwing rocks, concrete blocks and containers of urine. He said some protesters had been seen carrying iron bars. He added: "We treated everybody with respect and dignity and there has been a clear delineation between the travellers and the protesters. The majority of the violence was clearly coming from the protesters and obviously we have had to deal accordingly." The police and local political leaders were at pains to distinguish the protesters – some clearly being provocative – at the site from the Travellers. John Baron, the local Conservative MP, told the Guardian: "It is not about the Travellers, it is about planning laws being upheld. Complaints about ethnic cleansing are rubbish. The protesters have made their point and now they should leave – and the Travellers could help by telling them to go."