Wheelchair-using amputee, 92, pepper sprayed and tasered by police after threatening to stab care home staff
A 92-year-old disabled man who uses a wheelchair was allegedly assaulted by police officers after threatening to stab care home staff, a court has heard.
Donald Burgess, a single-leg amputee residing at Park Beck care home in St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex, reportedly threatened to kill staff with a serrated knife used to help him cut food independently. Staff said he claimed he would “take a great deal of pleasure” from doing so, prompting a 999 call to police.
Jurors at Southwark Crown Court were told that within just 83 seconds of two officers entering Mr Burgess’s room, he was sprayed in the face with Pava (synthetic pepper spray), struck with a baton, and tasered.
PC Stephen Smith, 51, and PC Rachel Comotto are on trial charged with assault occasioning actual bodily harm. Smith denies two counts of assault for using the spray and baton, while Comotto denies one count of assault for deploying her Taser.
In an emergency call played to the jury, deputy care home manager Donna Gardner said: “He’s threatening to stab staff and has stated that he wants to murder and it will give him a great deal of pleasure.” She added: “We’ve removed him from other residents but he’s not given in.”
Although the knife had been provided for meal assistance, Gardner acknowledged its potential danger, saying it had a sharp, serrated edge. “Going back a few years we had a spell where he was threatening to hang himself, so I don’t want to take any chances with this gentleman,” she added.
Care home manager Steve Cooper testified that Burgess had been acting aggressively for over 30 minutes and did not respond to de-escalation efforts. “He was very aggressive and threatening to hurt my members of staff,” he told the court. “He had a look in his eyes I’ve never seen before – he wasn’t the Donald I knew.”
Cooper described the situation as so extreme that in his witness statement he said Burgess looked “possessed”. “‘Possessed’ seems a bit dramatic, but that was the word I used at the time,” he told the court.
He said he made the decision to call police after all other attempts to calm the situation failed: “It was 35 minutes of trying to calm the situation down before I had to make that unfortunate decision.”
Prosecutor Paul Jarvis KC told jurors that the force used by the officers was “unjustified and unlawful,” arguing that Mr Burgess did not pose an immediate threat at the time.
In her call to police, Ms Gardner acknowledged that Burgess had “extremely limited” mobility. “He is a wheelchair user so for him to approach the residents would be difficult for him,” she said. “It’s unlikely he would approach another resident but it’s quite likely they could approach him without realising the danger.”
The trial continues.