Tasers still an option for all frontline staff

POLICE chiefs have not ruled out arming all officers with Tasers, Chief Constable Phil Gormley said yesterday.

Top brass this week rejected a Scottish Police Federation call for the force to be routinely armed with the weapons.

But Mr Gormley appeared to soften the position, saying: ‘I don’t rule anything in or anything out in terms of how we need to think about how we best protect officers. This is a time for warm hearts and cool heads.

‘We’ve all got huge outpourings of sympathy for colleagues down south [after the Westminster attack]. But we need to make sure we make properly considered decisions in terms of our response to that, and that’s what we will do.’

He ruled out the routine arming of officers with conventional weapons, saying: ‘The unintended consequence of that for us and for the public would be to present greater risk and threat.’

At the federation’s conference yesterday, Justice Secretary Michael Matheson also ruled out routine arming of officers.

He said: ‘The public want to know Police Scotland has an appropriate armed policing capability, not necessarily an armed service. We have that balance right.’