Revealed: Police officer drew gun on child younger than 11

A Northamptonshire police officer drew a gun on a child younger than 11 last year, Yahoo News UK can reveal.

Police in England and Wales used force against children under the age of 11 in a total of 659 incidents last year, analysis of home office figures show, up from 427 the previous year.

Between April 2021 and March 2022, Northamptonshire Police was the only force to report an incident of a firearm drawn against a young child.

One child under 11 was tasered, while a further seven had Tasers drawn on them but not discharged, the figures reveal.

There were 290 cases of under 11s being restrained by police, of which 114 were handcuffed.

Force was used against 11-17 year olds a total of 87,528 times – of which 100 were tasered, while 401 had a gun aimed at them.

This up from 53,856 the previous year.

Over half (53%) of the 608,164 total recorded ‘use of force incidents’ were against people in the 18-34 age bracket, with a total of 325,021 incidents, compared to 10% (61,262) of incidents for people under 17.

The most common reason an officer used force was to protect themselves (425,721 incidents, 70%).

Unicef, the UN humanitarian organisation for children, has previously called for a UK ban on the use of Tasers and spit hoods for children under the age of 18.

In 2020, they said that using Tasers on children goes against children’s rights and urged the UK government to increase the age of criminal responsibility from 10 in England.

Responding to the Unicef report, the government said: “While we support the recommendation in principle, we believe it is impractical to implement it while Taser is in use for other age groups and officers’ first priority must be to defend members of the public or themselves.”

In January this year, the Howard League charity, who run a legal service for children and young people in custody, described the use of restraint tactics and Tasers against children as “worrying”.

Andrew Neilson, director of campaigns at the charity, said: “A steep rise in the police use of force against children is a worrying trend, particularly when the levels of children arrested remain thankfully low.

“Police forces across England and Wales should review what might be behind this rise and work to reduce the number of incidents involving children.”