'Do you want to be sprayed or Tasered?': two officers sacked over a 92-year-old's care home arrest
The 5 News short on the misconduct ruling against two Sussex Police officers passed a quarter of a million views within eleven hours of going up.
5 News
Story of Why this story? The video opened at a pace of 402,595 views a day, 54 times a normal first day on this channel (7,430).
Police officers sacked for using Taser and baton on amputee, 92, at care home
Two Sussex Police officers have been dismissed for gross misconduct over what happened in a care home bedroom in St Leonards-on-Sea in June 2022. The 5 News short on the ruling drew more than a quarter of a million views in its first eleven hours. The channel's short reports usually draw several thousand viewers on their first day.
The man in that room was Donald Burgess, a 92-year-old resident with dementia who had lost a leg and used a wheelchair. Carers had called the police after he threatened them with a dinner knife. Body-worn camera footage showed one officer walking in and asking whether he wanted to be sprayed or Tasered. When he did not put the knife down, he was pepper sprayed, struck with a baton and Tasered as he sat in his wheelchair. The misconduct panel found that neither officer tried to calm the situation first, and the force said he was alone in his own room and posed no risk to other residents.
Mr Burgess was taken to hospital, where he contracted Covid and died 22 days later. The officers were not held responsible for his death. Both had been acquitted of assault occasioning actual bodily harm in May 2025. The hearing at Sussex Police headquarters found their force unjustified and excessive, and both will be placed on the police barred list. The Independent Office for Police Conduct also noted that one of them joked about the Tasering on social media afterwards.
The comments arrived nearly thirty times faster than on a usual first day for the channel's shorts. Two questions come up again and again: why the care home called the police at all, and why conduct serious enough for dismissal was not treated as a crime.
The channel's other strong start that day came from the Conservative conference in Birmingham, where Jeremy Clarkson opened by joking about empty seats. A second 5 News version of the care home story, titled around the wheelchair, also drew about 100,000 views in its first twelve hours.
Published on Trari
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- Channel
- 5 News
- Subscribers
- 201,000
- Channel views, last 7 days
- 1,115,110
- Channel views, pace per day
- 198,700 (on a normal day: 151,345)
- Video published
- October 6, 2026
- Video views so far
- 264,790 (less than a day online)
- Video views, pace per day
- 402,595
The numbers
The numbers show how far this short ran ahead of what the channel's new uploads usually manage.
