Man wrongly Tasered by Nottinghamshire Police gets £30k payout

A man who suffered serious injuries after being wrongly Tasered by police during his birthday celebrations has received £30,000 in damages. Dimitri Moses experienced significant harm, including a fractured spine, following the incident in Nottingham on 10 July 2021. The injury occurred after he ran from officers he feared would assault him and was subsequently Tasered while climbing over a metal gate, resulting in a fall that rendered him unconscious.

According to legal documents, Nottinghamshire Police stated that an officer attempted to detain Moses over a suspected public order offence. The force expressed hope that the financial settlement would provide some solace to Moses. At the time, Moses was at a bar with two friends celebrating his 34th birthday, when they were asked to leave after one friend was seen dancing away from their table, violating Covid regulations requiring customers to remain seated.

The situation escalated outside the venue when security personnel reportedly threatened one of Moses’s friends, prompting the involvement of three police officers. During this confrontation, one officer, identified as PC Butler, was recorded on CCTV pushing Moses across the street and instructing him to count to ten before leaving the area. Moses’s solicitor, Iain Gould, explained that Moses’s compliance by counting seemingly provoked Officer Butler, who then lunged at him, a claim denied by Nottinghamshire Police. The officers eventually surrounded Moses, with two grabbing his arms, prompting him to flee in fear for his safety.

While attempting to escape, Moses climbed a metal gate at Sneinton Market, where he was Tasered by PC McClintock while approximately six feet off the ground. The deployment caused Moses to fall, fracturing three vertebrae and sustaining multiple injuries. Nottinghamshire Police defended the Taser use, stating the officer believed it was necessary to stop Moses from escaping and to detain him safely. However, Gould contested this, noting that a Taser should only be used in response to an identified threat, which Moses did not pose. The force acknowledged the complexity of policing but affirmed the importance of rectifying mistakes, emphasizing that an internal investigation found no evidence of racial bias in the case

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