Police officer fined for accidental shot during exercise

Case no. 73/2020
Judgment delivered on 25 March 2021

The Prosecution Service
vs.
T

T, a police officer, had been on duty before arriving at an exercise and was therefore carrying his loaded pistol with a cartridge in the chamber. When he arrived, he forgot to insert the red safety rod in his pistol to prevent it from accidentally firing. In a practice room with five of his colleagues, T was to practise drawing his pistol and drew it from its holster, pointed it at a brick wall and pulled the trigger, thereby unintentionally firing a shot.

The Supreme Court held that this was a punishable offence on the grounds that T should have known that he should have inserted a safety rod in his service pistol during an exercise, and that T intentionally pulled the trigger without checking that the safety rod was there. The Supreme Court also considered that the exercise was held in a room that was not specially designed for shooting, and in a situation where there were other people present in the room.

The Supreme Court thus affirmed the judgment of the High Court.