Two police officers joked about using a full can of Pava spray on a 92-year-old care home resident who had just been tasered and arrested, a court has heard.
Body-worn video footage of officers in the moments after Donald Burgess, a single-leg amputee and wheelchair user, was restrained was shown to jurors. The care home resident was staying at Park Beck care home in St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex.
Pava spray is a synthetic-made pepper spray that many forces in the UK now use in place of the traditional gas spray.
Pc Stephen Smith, 51, and Pc Rachel Comotto, 36, are on trial at Southwark Crown Court accused of assault occasioning actual bodily harm after allegedly using excessive force on Mr Burgess in June 2022.
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.
Earlier this week, jurors heard how Smith allegedly emptied a full canister of the incapacitant into Mr Burgess’s face, struck him with a baton, and how Comotto deployed her Taser – all within 83 seconds of entering his room.
On Wednesday, the jury was shown fresh body-worn camera footage from the aftermath of the incident.
In one clip, Comotto is seen laughing and asking Smith: “Oh my God, is there any left in your can?”
Smith replies: “Probably not.”
Later, another officer outside the care home asks if Smith had used a “Smithy special”.
Smith responded by describing the incident as a “stand-off”.
“Even after spraying he clutched on to it (the knife) to the point where I was going to knock it out of his hands,” he said.
“Just a stand-off with him – gave him all the options.”
At one point, Mr Burgess, visibly distressed, told the officers: “I’m dying.”
He is then handcuffed in his wheelchair and taken outside.
Speaking to care home manager Steve Cooper shortly after the incident, Comotto says: “We don’t like doing that at all, but what can you do?”
Prosecutors say the force used against Mr Burgess – who had been threatening staff with a serrated cutlery knife and telling them he would take pleasure in murdering them – was excessive and unnecessary given his age and physical condition.
He was seated in his wheelchair and surrounded by staff when officers entered his room and began issuing commands, jurors have heard.
The footage also showed officers coughing heavily after the spray was deployed.
In Comotto’s body-worn footage she says: “I just hate Pava. It’s just horrible, isn’t it?”
In a statement given during a police interview and read to the court by prosecutor Paul Jarvis KC, the officer 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.
The trial continues.
