Inquest suggests police taser and spray may have hastened 92-year-old's death

Police were called to Park Beck Residential Care Home in St Leonards-on-Sea after resident Donald Burgess, a 92-year-old man with dementia, brandished a butter knife. Officers Stephen Smith, 51, and Rachel Comotto, 34, arrived, shouted at him, and when he did not comply, Smith struck him with a baton and sprayed almost an entire can of pepper spray into his face, after which Comotto discharged a taser into his chest. Burgess was handcuffed, taken to a police station and later hospitalized for a urinary tract infection, but the care home refused to readmit him.

While waiting for a placement, he contracted Covid-19, suffered a cardiac arrest and died of bronchial pneumonia with cardiac disease 22 days after the incident. The family’s solicitor, Jesse Nicholls, contends that the police force caused physiological stress that contributed to the death, rejecting the notion of natural causes. Both officers faced charges of actual bodily harm but were cleared of assault at Southwark Crown Court last year. East Sussex Coroner Michael Spencer has adjourned the inquest, scheduling a further hearing for December 15.