Taser policeman denies targeting man ‘in anger’

A police officer accused of unlawfully Tasering a naked man who threw a pair of underpants at him during a strip search denied he had acted out of “revenge, anger or retribution”.

Pc Lee Birch, 30, discharged his weapon into the bare chest of Daniel Dove in a cell at Melksham Police Station in Wiltshire hours after a disturbance outside a nightclub. Birch had arrested Mr Dove earlier that morning, on December 23 2012, outside Moo Moo in Trowbridge, Bristol Crown Court heard. Mr Dove was charged with being drunk and disorderly and assaulting Birch and a second officer, though the case against him was later dropped.

Birch was then charged with assault occasioning actual bodily harm and misconduct in a public office, which he denies.