Did you hear the one about the blind man wielding a samurai sword? No? That’s because this isn’t actually a joke and fortunately his samurai sword turned out to be his white stick.
It is however a true story that police in Lancashire mistook an elderly blind man for a samurai wielding threat to the public and shot him in the back with a 50,000 volt taser stun gun. 61 year old Colin Farmer thought he was being attached by hooligans when the police launched their assault on him in Chorley last year.
Mr Farmer is claiming compensation for physical and psychological injuries he suffered as a result of the incident.
It’s hard to imagine just how an incident such as this came about and is extremely worrying that it did. Incidents such as this simply add to the controversy surrounding the use of taser guns and call in to question the actions of the police on this occasion. In their defence they had been responding to reports of a man carrying a samurai sword in the area and did later arrest a 27 year old who was the correct target for their investigation.
Lancashire Police investigated the matter and the officer involved has had his taser withdrawn.
