Industry news roundup: week ended 29 Oct 2012:
News broke this week how one poor man has decided to seek personal injury compensation after being Tasered by police in a case of mistaken identity.
Colin Farmer, a sixty two year old man from Chorley who is legally registered as only partially sighted and blind after suffering two strokes, was Tasered from behind with a debilitating 50,000 Volt Taser gun by a police officer after the law enforcement official thought he was, of all things, a samurai sword wielding thug. Poor Mr Farmer had been on his way down to his local pub to meet some of his mates for a few pints, using his white walking stick, when it was mistaken by Chorley police – who had been alerted to some sword wielding man in the area – for the weapon.
Mr Farmer had been moving slowly at the time due to his disability when police ordered him to stop. However, the man mis-interpreted the shouting as a street thug attempting to mug him, and in the resultant furore the police officer Tasered him in the back, causing him to collapse on the pavement face first.
Once the police realised the grave mistake they made, they rushed the blind man to Chorley Hospital for treatment. However, the injured man has since made the decision to make a personal injury claim against the police.
It has been reported that later that night the police found the actual individual they were looking for in the first place. The self-styled street samurai, a twenty seven year old male, was apprehended whilst in possession of the martial arts weapon and taken into police custody, where he will undoubtedly need to use all his samurai skills to emerge from this unscathed.
The Independent Police Complaints Commission is understood to be launching an investigation into the incident and will hopefully uncover how anyone could not only mistake a blind man’s walking stick for a two-handed sword wielded by ancient Japanese warriors, not to mention how it could be justified to Taser the same blind man from behind as he fled from the offier at the breakneck speed of of a disabled shuffle. We can only hope that Mr Farmer has the best of luck in pursuing his accident claim.