Marc Antony Cole · Prevention of Future Deaths report

The investigation was commenced on the 26th May 2017 and concluded by an inquest before a jury on the 28th January 2020.

The cause of death recorded by the jury was:-

1(a) Use of cocaine, episode of altered behaviour including self-harm, exertion, excitement, the use of x26 Taser Device and restraint.

On the 23rd of May 2017 Mr Cole, who been acting in a paranoid and psychotic manner, ingested a substantial amount of cocaine before jumping from a first floor window of a friend’s home.
He was in possession of a large knife with which he stabbed a woman in her garden before walking in the roadway and was seen to be slashing with the knife at his own throat and neck.
The police arrived and, following a confrontation with Mr Cole, Tasered him on three occasions.
He suffered a cardiac arrest at the scene and was rushed by ambulance to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead by medical staff.
The jury, in dealing with the cause of death found specifically “excessive of cocaine taken resulting in paranoid and erratic behaviour with the use of the Taser having more than a trivial impact on Mr Cole’s cardiac arrest”

It was said by a number of witnesses that the Taser is not a device without risk but that there is limited data as to its effects upon individuals (both generally but more particularly in those classified as vulnerable).
In evidence it was clear that there is no understanding about the potential for incremental risk with multiple Taser activations and no training provided as to the maximum number of activations nor of their duration which is appropriate or safe.
The evidence was that the training given to police officers in this aspect is as set down by the College of Policing and that it is silent as to the potential incremental risk of multiple and or sustained activations (the so called ‘detention under power’).
It was clear from the evidence of ████████ (an intensivist consultant) that a Taser does carry a risk – despite, he said, the claims of the manufacturers - but the extent of that risk is far from clear.
Two forensic pathologists gave evidence and confirmed their joint opinion that the Taser caused (together with other things) Mr Cole’s death in that it played a more than minimal, trivial or negligible part.
Although I found as a fact that the training given to the police officers was appropriate I did so ONLY upon the basis that it was given based upon the limited knowledge presently available.
I am concerned, based upon the evidence that was led before the jury, that there is insufficient independent data as to the lethality of Taser use and that, therefore the advice and training provided to police officers may be deficient or incomplete.