Family of Falmouth's Marc Cole react to Taser report findings

An inquest in January heard that 30-year-old Mr Cole died after being Tasered by police three times during an incident in Langton Road, Falmouth, on May 23, 2017.

At the end of the hearing Geraint Williams, assistant coroner for Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, wrote to both the Home Secretary and the College of Policing, after a jury found Mr Cole's death was caused by “excess use of cocaine resulting in paranoid and erratic behaviour, with the use of a Taser having more than a trivial impact”.

However, the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) which investigated the case concluded that the performance of the officers involved did not fall below the standard expected and last week the Packet reported how Kit Malthouse, the Minister for crime and policing, had told the coroner he was satisfied with the controls in place regarding the use of Tasers.

Read more: Taser investigation findings following death of Falmouth man Marc Cole

In a statement to the Packet, the Cole family said: "We are so angry that the Home Office and police are not taking my brother's horrifying death seriously.

"In the wake of the George Floyd killing and the subsequent global uprising, we are once again consumed by trauma; it is too close to home for us.

"I am outraged and this is so painful for us. We have had zero justice for Marc, how can that be right?"

The family said the "very least" the family wanted was to change the Taser training and ban repeated tasering of vulnerable people in mental health crisis.

The Cole family are using this image of Marc to promote their campaign

His sister Lisa added: "I was absolutely galled when I was told that the Government and the police are refusing to change the Taser training.

"I had only just started to get over the stress and trauma of the inquest and then hearing that was sickening.

"I have been campaigning for over three years to get this training brought in.

"The coroner wrote a Prevention of Future Deaths report and the Home Office have refused to do anything to keep people safe.

"We want change and we want justice."

Read next: Inquest verdict - Taser had 'more than trivial impact' on Falmouth man

Mr Cole's family has now joined with the family of Adrian McDonald, who died in police custody in Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire in 2014, after also being Tasered, to launch a campaign.

Collectively called the Justice For Marc Cole and Adrian McDonald Campaign, the families have launched a petition at http://chng.it/Ch9KNZrn calling on the Government to revise police training on the use of Taser.

In it they make demands for:

- A complete revision of what the describe as "the current inadequate training" around the use of prolonged and multiple Taser use, along with its health implications on vulnerable people, to include anyone with mental ill health or emotional distress, who is severely intoxicated, pregnant women and any child under 18 years of age.

- An immediate ban on the use of prolonged and multiple Taser use on the above people.

- All police forces to be subjected to "rigorous scrutiny" regarding their use of Tasers, whether fired or drawn, on an annual basis.

- All forces to disclose full and complete data annually regarding the ethnicity and health status of members of the public who have been Tasered.

- All forces to be required to fill in a Use Of Force form and a Taser Use Of Force form immediately following a situation where Taser use is followed by a fatality.

- The Government to issue an "urgent and independent" review into the current use of Tasers against people in mental health crisis and black people.