12/05/2017 Spotlight

Devon and Cornwall Police is to more than double the number of officers

Within the next two years more than 80% of front line officers

An upgraded twin-cartridge Taser which allows the device

to be deployed twice is also being introduced.

But as Janine Jansen reports, the human rights group

Amnesty International has raised concerns.

Taser is designed for dealing with violent suspects

Taser uses 50,000 volts to incapacitate a suspect.

As a deterrent, the threat of its use is usually sufficient

Between 2011 and 2016, Devon and Cornwall Police attended

1.6 million incidents across both counties.

In that period of time, we drew the Taser on 1600 occasions,

and of those, we only used it in a quarter.

Currently, 550 police officers carry a Taser.

That number is set to more than double,

That means 85% of frontline officers will be trained to carry a Taser,

in order to help keep the public safe.

A new upgraded device is being introduced.

It has a twin cartridge so it can deploy again

In 2013, Andrew Pimlott from Plymouth doused himself

with petrol, which ignited after he was shot with a Taser.

His parents heard an inquest jury concluded the device was

the most likely cause of the fire which killed him.

The constable who fired it was cleared of gross misconduct.

Andrew's parents want to see Tasers used less.

An ordinary gun would have been better than using a Taser

If they used a gun and shot his leg, my boy would still have been here.

And I think if anybody else is in that situation,

God help them, I hope it never happens to anyone else.

A spokesperson for the human rights group Amnesty International says...

This is not the arming of the police.

This is a less lethal option, and it is just giving our officers

the best equipment there is to protect themselves

The police sought feedback from the public.

It said 88% of those who responded supported plans to increase Tasers.

Just over six months on from the fire at

Exeter's Royal Clarence Hotel, part of the structure is having

Charred wooden beams from the hotel have been salvaged and turned

into a sculpture called Hope and Renewal which goes

It feels slightly wrong to be burning this wood a second time

when it's survived the first major fire.

Martin Staniforth, known as Morph, is working with wood salvaged

Some of this wood comes from trees planted in the 16th century.

It's such a tragic story, such a disaster that we have lost

this amazing, wonderful building from the heart of our city.

And I think people saw that therefore this was some kind

of small good news story offsetting that huge, huge disaster.

This is a first foray into burnt wood.

In the car on the way up here, it actually felt over like that.

And that, I thought, was a more pleasing shape.

The sculpture is going on display within sight of the hotel

For me, a piece of art has to kind of beg a conversation,

it has to provoke, it has to get people thinking and doing something

Judge for yourself, as new life is breathed into old timber.

The work of nurses across the south west was celebrated today as part

And at Musgrove Park Hospital in Taunton they did it in style,

In just a matter of seconds, the helipad at Musgrove Park

Hospital became a dance floor, doctor-turned-choreographer

Marla Pradeep leading a team of nurses, health care assistants,

nurses and doctors in a routine to rival strictly, though some found

This is very much all of us joining in to have a

For the organisers of this flash mob it was all about celebrating nursing

but also to show a togetherness in difficult times within the NHS.

We had groups of people doing it separately.

Which, presumably for embarrassment purposes only, was also filmed,

and then it was back to the day job, just another day in A

And they are looking after me very well.

Brilliant. Let's get the weekend weather from David.

We got some rain this weekend but if the timing is right,

and I think it is, most of the rain will fall during the night.

Late in the day on Saturday some rain but it's an overnight feature

for most of us and Sunday doesn't look bad with a weak

This first weather system will produce some rain by the end

That sweeps through quite quickly, and then before the next system

arrives, which is probably on Sunday night, there is a lot of dry

weather and we should get some sunshine on Sunday,

a slightly fresher feel to the air on Sunday but we had

This was earlier this evening across the South West of England.

It is now moving away northwards, what's left behind is a few light

showers and later tonight I think the skies will begin to clear

and a lot of the low cloud should lift, so a slightly colder night

than last night with temperatures down to 8 or 9 degrees and tomorrow

Bright and dry, a chance of a light shower at some point

Later in the day coming in from the West is a line of rain

but it's taking its time, across parts of Dorset

Dry and bright on Sunday again until the end of the day and then

we see thicker cloud approach from the far West and also

freshening the wind, so in summary, not looking too bad for the weekend,

That's it for now. We're back tomorrow evening at 6:15pm. Good

night. A bit of a mixed bag earlier on

today, some of us were cloudy with rain. This is the view from one of

our weather watchers in Cornwall. But in the Highlands of Scotland, it

was completely different, find, sunny and warm. The satellite and

radar picture shows the variety of weather we have had. It brightened

up into the afternoon, early