Why did harmless OAP cop a Taser?

IT WAS the most shameful mismatch imaginable. In the (boys in) blue corner we had 51-year-old stocky PC Stephen Smith, armed with a form of pepper spray and an extendable police baton, and 36-year-old PC Rachel Comotto, complete with a Taser. Both were also wearing stab vests.

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In the opposite corner sat a one-legged, 92-year-old man suffering with dementia. He was holding a butter knife measuring little over four inches while confined to a wheelchair in his room at the Park Beck care home in St Leonards-on-Sea, Sussex.

What happened next disgraced the thousands of men and women up and down the country brave enough to pull on the uniform of a police officer - or to serve in plain clothes too of course.

Within 83 seconds of entering the room, having failed to drop the butter knife, Donald Burgess had pepper spray discharged in his face and was then Tasered.

No attempt was made to take the knife from him or even “talk him down”. Rather, the frail nonagenarian was repeatedly shouted at and threatened in an outrageously bullying manner.