ARMED police officers have been deployed to more than 220 incidents in North Yorkshire in the last 12 months.

Figures obtained by The Press show armed North Yorkshire Police officers fired their weapons 15 times during call-outs in the region between February 2014 and this month.

A force spokesman said: “Firearms units can be called upon to deal with any incident for which a patrol officer could also otherwise attend. However over the last 12 months, authority has been given for the deployment of firearms 224 times.

“In most instances, such deployments do not involve the actual withdrawing of a weapon either from a holster or secure storage.”

Forty-five of the 224 deployments were to reports of firearms held by members of the public, which resulted in 12 weapons being seized. by officers.

Edged or bladed weapons were responsible for armed police being called in 106 incidents, and 30 call outs were for “protection duties for visiting VIPs”, but the spokesman did not specify which visitors.

The spokesman said weapons would only be drawn under certain circumstances, including where the officer authorising the deployment believes officers may have to protect themselves from someone with a potentially lethal weapon, as an “operational contingency” based on threat assessment during a specific operation, or “for the destruction of animals which are dangerous or are suffering unnecessarily”.

The spokesman said 24 of the incidents related to “animals which were dangerous or are suffering unnecessarily”, and every round fired by officers during the 12-month period had been “to despatch injured animals or those causing a danger to the public”.

He said: “On three of these occasions, more than one shot was required.”

Information about how many times police firearms were aimed at people was not held by police.