Police officer 'upset, devastated' tasering led to 95-year-old Clare Nowland's death

The police officer who tasered 95-year-old Clare Nowland in an aged care home said he was “upset and devastated” that his actions led to her death.

The NSW Supreme Court jury trial against 34-year-old Senior Constable Kristian James Samuel White began last week. He has pleaded not guilty to a charge of manslaughter.

Ms Nowland was holding a knife and using a walking frame in Yallambee Lodge in Cooma, NSW, on 17 May 2023, when he tasered her. She fell over, hit her head and died from her injuries seven days later.

Under questioning from his defence barrister, Troy Edwards SC, on Monday (18 November), Mr White said he didn’t think the tasering would result in her death.

“I never intended for her to be injured by it at all,” Mr White said.

“I’ve never seen them [tasers] cause a serious injury.”

The tasering was captured on security and body-worn cameras. The court has released footage of Ms Nowland’s movements around the building before the incident, as well as of police, paramedics and staff searching for her.

Mr White said during this search, he intended to find Ms Nowland, work out whether she still had knives, and then disarm her, if so, “to ensure everyone’s safety”.

He said when they found her sitting in a small office room with a 15 cm kitchen knife in her hand, she appeared to be “confused” and in a “delirium”.

Ms Nowland used her mobility walker to start moving towards the door and raised the knife in her hand towards those on the other side of the doorway, including the two police officers, four times.

Mr White and then-acting Sergeant Jessica Pank quickly discussed disarming her by grabbing her arm with the knife, although he thought this was high-risk. He then raised his taser and pointed it at Ms Nowland because he “felt the threat was increasing significantly”.

“She was pointing the knife at us, essentially, and she was definitely communicating her intent that she was going to use the knife if anyone got near her,” he said.

He warned her to stop moving towards them and drop the knife a number of times after he took out his taser.

“Because of her age, I wanted to give her every opportunity to comply with our directions,” he said.

Mr White admitted he could have walked away but said, “That would not have resolved the situation at all”. He also said he didn’t want her to leave the office because “it would have increased the risk significantly to everyone present”.

He kept the taser pointed at her for one minute before saying, “Nah, bugger it”, and firing.

“Obviously, it was not going to be resolved, to me, without the use of force,” he said.

When Mr Edwards asked why he fired the taser, he said, “I believe she was posing a risk to not only myself but also Sergeant Pank”.

“Clare had indicated her intent to us that she was going to use her knife on anyone that got near her,” he said.

During the cross-examination by prosecutor Brett Hatfield SC, he denied that his comment “bugger it” meant he had had enough and was fed up.

“I was going to be firing a taser at a 95-year-old. I thought it was my only option at the time to ensure a safe resolution of the incident,” he said.

“Yes, I completely understood it was going to cause her some kind of injury and pain … it’s not our job to shy away from those sorts of incidents.”

He said Ms Nowland could have tried to stab him, even though he was standing about 1.5 metres away from her.

“You could have avoided being stabbed by stepping away, couldn’t you,” Mr Hatfield asked.

“It’s a possibility,” Mr White said.

He denied the prosecutor’s suggestion that she was walking “very, very slowly” with her mobility frame, saying she was walking “slowly” in a “shuffle-walk”. But he said it took her one minute to move about 1.5 metres.

He also disagreed with Mr Hatfield’s suggestion that she looked “frail”, saying she was “not the frailest I’ve seen”.

“I thought she looked quite well for someone who was 95 years of age,” he said.

Footage of the incident captured him calling the knife a “carving knife”. He told jurors he only knew it was a steak knife once Ms Pank had removed it from her hand after he tasered her.

Mr White has finished his cross-examination. The jury trial continues before Justice Ian Harrison.