Met officer Tasered girl, 10, twice over garden shears threat, hearing told

PC Jonathan Broadhead Tasered the child twice while she held garden shears and a hammer

A 10-year-old girl who threatened her mother with garden shears was Tasered twice by a Met Police officer, a misconduct hearing was told.

PC Jonathan Broadhead fired his Taser at the girl twice within "approximately eight seconds" of entering her home in south London on 21 January 2021.

He is accused of using force "which was not necessary, reasonable and proportionate" against the girl.

If the complaint is upheld the incident would amount to gross misconduct.

On Monday, the hearing was told the girl was still clutching the garden shears when PC Broadhead discharged the Taser and had not listened to his commands to drop them.

The girl, referred to as Child A at the hearing, had grown angry with her mother.

Miss A, her mother, had confiscated her mobile phone because of a safeguarding concern about her online activity, the hearing was told.

Giving evidence, Miss A said she feared the girl's behaviour may have been affected by consuming cannabis edibles, and said she called 999 after she started threatening her with the hammer and shears.

She claimed her daughter hit her with the hammer before police arrived, but said she was a safe distance away from her when officers got there and did not want her to be Tasered.

Olivia Checa-Dover, a barrister presenting the case for the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), said the incident breached professional standards.

She said the officer "accepts the factual elements" and that the issue for the panel is whether this was "consistent with high standards".

The "brief circumstances including the age of Child A were relayed over the airwaves" to PC Broadhead and his colleague PC Stephen Morgan before they arrived, Ms Checa-Dover added.

She said the incident was captured on the officers' body-worn camera and in the footage Miss A "was presenting as calm".

Ms Checa-Dover said "Child A is seen some way from the door, further along the hallway" and "appears to pick something up - now understood to be shears - from the floor".

She added: "The officer instructed her to put them down, which she did not do.

"She walked away from those present, moving up the stairs of the home.

"The officer didn't speak to Miss A to clarify the present situation or whether there was anyone else in the house; rather, he advanced into the house announcing he was a police officer with a Taser and soon thereafter using his Taser twice on her whilst she was on the stairs."

A fellow officer said PC Broadhead's actions brought the high-risk situation to a "safe halt"

Ms Checa-Dover said the incident left Child A with "three barbs in her skin" which had to be removed by paramedics.

"She was kept in hospital overnight, discharged the following day, at which point the barb injuries were still tender," she said

Miss A told the hearing she wanted the police to convince her daughter to put down the hammer and shears "by talking to her".

She said: "I remember my daughter sitting in the kitchen on a chair with the hammer and shears and she quickly got up - I feel that she was scared - and she quickly ran up the stairs.

"As she was running up the stairs she was shot with the Taser."

Miss A said she was "shocked" by "the way things were handled".

She added: "I wouldn't have called the police if I knew she would have been Tasered."

'Things got really bad'

Asked if the experience has affected whether she would call the police again, she said: "If a child's involved, yes."

Robert Morris, representing PC Broadhead, told Miss A: "Things had got really bad on that day... and it started off because you were concerned with your daughter and who she was dealing with online.

"You were concerned for her welfare and so you had taken away her mobile phone, and she reacted very badly to that... she just got more and more aggressive."

He asked Miss A if her daughter holding the hammer and shears scared her, to which she replied: "Yes."

Mr Morris went on: "So when you called up 999, it was because you were scared of what your daughter might do to you?"

Miss A said: "Correct."

PC Morgan said he was concerned for his own safety during the incident and that the 10-year-old, still armed with the shears, had gained a "positional advantage" after she moved on to the stairs.

Asked why he at no point challenged PC Broadhead "on the basis he used disproportionate force", he said his colleague's actions had brought the high-risk situation to a "safe halt".

The hearing continues.