Metropolitan Police agree to carry guns that fire plastic baton rounds

Police in London are to be equipped with baton guns that fire plastic bullets, the Metropolitan Police Authority decided yesterday.

In the past 12 months, five people have been shot dead by conventionally armed officers in England and Wales and there have been calls for less lethal options to be made available. Plastic bullets fired from baton guns can knock a person down at a distance of up to 100ft, but can kill if they hit the head or heart.

The new £1,500 weapon, authorised by the Home Office in June last year, is chiefly intended for use against suspects armed with knives. Yesterday's decision by the Metropolitan Police Authority approved their use by Scotland Yard's Specialist Fire Arms Unit, SO19.

Scotland Yard's assistant commissioner of specialist operations, David Veness, said: "Baton guns would provide a great advantage to our officers. They are not a replacement for conventional firearms but there are circumstances where they would have the benefit, one hopes, of providing a less draconian outcome."

The commander of specialist operations, Andre Baker, revealed that electric stun guns – which disable people from 45ft – could be the next new weapon. "There are a whole number of other less lethal weapons such as laser guns used in America and we are looking at them too but they are a long way off being in London," he said.

Glen Smyth, chairman of the Met's Police Federation welcomed the baton guns: "The more options a police officer has, the better, and we hope plastic bullets will give them an extra string to their bow." But he added: "New, 'less lethal' weapons are not a panacea to all problems. The police officer on the street often has very little time to assess his options and it could be that the more options he has, the harder his decision becomes."

Most of the 43 forces in England and Wales are in the process of training specialist officers to use the baton guns but many have yet to carry the new equipment routinely.

Sir Alistair Graham, the chairman of the Police Complaints Authority, criticised the Metropolitan Police Authority last week for being slow to approve their use. No date has been set for their introduction.