Police officer is cleared of Taser assault

A POLICE officer who Tasered a race relations adviser in the face having mistaken him for a suspect was cleared yesterday because she was acting in self defence, a court ruled.

Pc Claire Boddie of Avon and Somerset Police was found not guilty of unlawfully discharging the weapon on Jan 14 last year, having wrongly identified Judah Adunbi as a man with an arrest warrant against his name. But she could still be sacked from her job after the Independent Office for Police Conduct said she did have a case to answer for gross misconduct.

District Judge Tan Ikram found Pc Boddie, 47, not guilty of assault by beating following a hearing at Salisbury magistrates’ court yesterday.

The trial was told that Mr Adunbi, who had acted as a race relations adviser for the force, had been mistaken for a suspect on numerous occasions. Pc Boddie had argued that she used reasonable force when she Tasered the 64-year-old outside his Bristol home.

The incident was captured on video by a passer-by and went viral.

Mr Adundi was recorded on video as saying: “If you put your hand on me I will put you to sleep” and Pc Boddie told the court she believed he had punched her colleague.