Police officer possibly 'fed up' when he tasered Clare Nowland, prosecutor claims

A police officer may have been “fed up” and “impatient” just before he tasered 95-year-old Clare Nowland in her aged care home, a prosecutor claimed as the officer’s trial came to an end.

Lawyers made their closing addresses in the NSW Supreme Court manslaughter trial of 34-year-old Senior Constable Kristian James Samuel White on Tuesday (19 November).

On 17 May 2023, Ms Nowland was holding a knife and using a walking frame in a small room at Yallambee Lodge in Cooma, NSW, to walk towards police officers, paramedics and staff when Mr White tasered her.

She fell over, hit her head and died from her injuries seven days later.

The tasering was captured on security and body-worn cameras. Mr White can be heard saying, “Nah, bugger it”, before firing.

Later that same day, he filled out an internal police statement in which he said: “As a violent confrontation was imminent, and to prevent injuries to police, the taser was discharged.”

During the closing addresses, prosecutor Brett Hatfield SC told the jurors they might think the comment of “bugger it” was completely inconsistent with preventing a violent confrontation.

He also said they might think the comment showed Mr White was “fed up, impatient, not prepared to wait any longer”.

Mr Hatfield said the jurors might think that no reasonable person in Mr White’s position at that time would have considered that a violent confrontation with Ms Nowland was imminent.

He said Mr White began pointing the taser at her while she was in a small office room behind a desk, then one minute later, she had only moved one metre.

While she held a knife in the air, the prosecutor said, “Everyone present was at a safe distance from her”.

He said she never made it through the room’s door and played security camera footage that showed officers, paramedics and staff standing back from the door when the taser was fired.

“You might ask yourself, who could she have injured at that moment? No one,” he said.

Mr Hatfield said the jurors might decide it was not realistic to think she could have reached about two metres to injure those outside the doorway.

“She was, in fact, not moving when the taser was deployed on her,” he said.

He said the law allowed a police officer to use such force that is reasonably necessary. However, he argued the tasering “was not reasonably necessary” in the circumstances.

Mr White pleaded not guilty to a charge of manslaughter when his trial began last week. He was asked why he tasered her when he testified himself on Monday.

“I believe she was posing a risk to not only myself but also Sergeant [Jessica] Pank,” he said.

In defence barrister Troy Edwards SC’s closing address, he said it was his client’s job “to obtain a resolution” and “he had to disarm her”.

He said Mr Hatfield had claimed the threat was limited that morning.

“The people who were actually there told you time and time again that they were frightened that Mrs Nowland would use the knife,” he told the jurors.

For instance, the second police officer at the scene, then-Acting Sergeant Jessica Pank, said she felt she could have been stabbed a number of times during the incident and she had been “scared”.

Mr Edwards said this was evidence of how a police officer at the scene perceived the threat.

He also said jurors could conclude that Ms Nowland was “absolutely determined” to keep hold of the knife, which his client had realised that morning.

Mr Edwards said when Ms Nowland was inside the office room, she had been told 20 times to stop moving and 21 times to drop the knife before she was tasered. This was in addition to all the earlier times staff had told her this as she moved around the aged care home that morning.

He said his client had perceived a legitimate threat, which he tried to defuse through negotiation, then suggested grabbing the knife to disarm her, but those didn’t work. That was when he “ran out of options” and discharged the taser.

“The reason he did what he did was because he was worried that someone was going to be stabbed,” Mr Edwards said.

The defence barrister also referred to the evidence given by a use of force and weapons expert from the police force who said, “Police are trained that a subject armed with a knife presents a significant risk to their safety”.

Justice Ian Harrison will begin his summing up on Wednesday (20 November).