A police officer who tasered a disabled 92-year-old care home resident claimed she treated him with the ‘utmost respect’ before blasting him with 50,000 volts of electricity.

Here’s the unedited footage in case you missed it in our blog earlier this week (warning = distressing footage):

Cop who tasered 92-year-old pensioner in care home says she treated him with the ‘utmost respect’ Here’s the officer in action https://t.co/8gyvqo6Yhh pic.twitter.com/LCEpoBLyyA

— CourtNewsUK (@CourtNewsUK) May 21, 2025

After being hit with pepper spray, a taser and a baton, 92-year-old Donald Burgess was taken to hospital, where he contracted Covid and died 22 days later.

In hindsight, might it have been a better idea to chuck a blanket on him and let him fall asleep? Or maybe just wrestle the knife out of his hand, or do anything other than taser a confused and disabled 92-year-old man?

PC Stephen Smith and PC Rachel Comotto were responding to a call at a care home in St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex, on 21 June 2022. Staff called police after Burgess, who had one leg, was seen poking a care worker in the stomach with a cutlery knife after flicking food at her.

PC Smith, 51, and PC Comotto, 36, are now on trial at Southwark Crown Court accused of assault occasioning actual bodily harm after (allegedly) using excessive force.

Smith is charged with two counts of assault relating to his use of Pava spray and a baton, while Comotto faces one count for discharging her taser. As you see in the clip, this all happened within 83 seconds of entering Burgess’s room at the care home.

In a statement given during a police interview and read to the court by prosecutor Paul Jarvis KC, PC Comotto said: ‘Our objective was clear – it was to disarm Mr Burgess as quickly and safely as possible.

‘I do not believe that my use of the Taser was disproportionate. I believe he posed an immediate and significant risk to himself.’

Comotto said she only learned of Mr Burgess’s age after the incident and was ‘very shocked’, saying she thought he was much younger.

‘I treated Mr Burgess with respect and courtesy before and after the force was used.’

She added: ‘I treated Mr Burgess with the utmost respect, even though he tried to stab PC Smith earlier that did not negatively affect my treatment of Mr Burgess.’

‘I do not believe in conscience that my use of the taser was disproportionate, excessive or unreasonable – that is my honestly held belief.

‘He had a knife in his right hand in a particularly strong grip which ultimately took the combined efforts of two police officers to remove from his grip.

‘The blade was serrated [and] several inches long.’

She sai Burgess refused to ‘relinquish the position of the knife’ which meant ‘using tactical options to disarm him from a distance.’

‘He indicated he would use the knife violently against anyone who stepped into his fighting arc.’

PC Comotto said it was the first time she had discharged her taser in four and a half years.

‘It is my honestly held belief if Mr Burgess was not disarmed expediently he would have used the knife to harm himself significantly, causing life-threatening or life-changing injuries – a possibility we could not countenance for’, her statement said.

Jurors then heard PC Smith’s written statement in which he claimed he was ‘not aware that Mr Burgess was disabled, was a single amputee and in a wheelchair.’

He said in the statement: ‘I was not aware of these vulnerabilities at the time when I first encountered him, therefore they did not impact my thought process when considering the most appropriate action.

‘At that time I was totally focused on the knife in his right hand.’

Well, I suppose they did what they felt was necessary in the moment. Who knows? Maybe if they hadn’t pepper sprayed and tasered Donald Burgess, he could have actually hurt himself or someone else. It just feels like there’s easier ways to disarm a disabled 92-year-old care home resident who is sat down in his chair, than to throw the kitchen sink at him.

The trial continues…

To watch a bounty hunter taser a guy after his girlfriend spat at him, click HERE.