The use of tasers by the Metropolitan Police has increased by nearly 500 per cent in five years.

Between January and June this year the force used tasers on 992 occasions, up by 490 per cent on their use of tasers on 168 occasions between July and December 2009.

This huge rise is despite a slight drop in usage in the first half of this year when compared with the second half of 2013.

Nationally there were 5,107 uses of tasers between January and June this year, down five per cent on the 5,381 uses between July and December 2013. Since 2009, however, when tasers were used on 1,267 occasions there has been a 300 per cent increase in the total number of times that tasers have been used.

The data, released by the Home Office, does not require a taser to be fired for it to be used. It measures all uses of tasers from occasions on which it was removed from its container to occasions on which it was fired.

Across England and Wales tasers were discharged 949 times in the first half of 2014. Discharges include instances in which the taser was fired from a distance and when the taser was discharged from close range while being held against the person that the police are attempting to subdue.