Your weekend headlines in Liverpool - Police tasers and covid vaccines for children

Police in Merseyside drew tasers more than 300 times in a year, figures show. But the electric shock weapons were only discharged 29 times.

In a report published recently, the Independent Office for Police Conduct raised serious concerns around the unnecessary or unsafe use of the devices. The report from the police watchdog made 17 recommendations to bodies including the Home Office, the College of Policing and the National Police Chiefs’ Council calling for improvements to the national guidance, training, scrutiny and monitoring of taser use.

Assistant chief constable Rob Carden said: “We have received this report and its recommendations and will, as ever, be fully reflecting and reviewing them, alongside our ongoing work in this area.

Covid vaccine for children

Professor Calum Semple said he would opt for one dose of the coronavirus vaccine only for 12 to 15-year-olds, if it was up to him.

Speaking to BBC Breakfast, the professor of child health and outbreak medicine at the University of Liverpool said he would probably go down the path of giving one dose only, as a one-off, and then waiting until children are much older before going for the double jab.

Elvis impersonator sentenced

A man who claimed disability benefits while working as an Elvis impersonator has been sentenced. The Crown Prosecution Service said that Joseph Thompson, 62, from Park Road, Blackpool,  fraudulently claimed more than £10,000 in benefits from 2016 to 2018.

He claimed that health problems, in particular musculoskeletal disease/spinal muscular atrophy (SMA)) meant that he had limited mobility. Yet, at the same time, he was working as an Elvis impersonator and involved in a band called the Prime Mover and was performing under the stage name of Joe Marcel.

He was given a 20 week jail sentence, suspended for 18 months. He’s subject to an electronic curfew from 8pm to 6am Sunday to Thursday. He is exempt from the curfew on Friday and Saturday nights so that he can continue to do some performances for charity.