Sydney, Australia — A police officer who shocked a 95-year-old nursing home resident with a Taser was found guilty of manslaughter in an Australian court Wednesday. A jury found Kristian James Samuel White guilty in the trial in Sydney after 20 hours of deliberation. White, who is on bail, could get up to 25 years in prison when he is sentenced later.
Clare Nowland, a great-grandmother who had dementia and used a walker, was refusing to put down the steak knife she was holding when the officer discharged his Taser at her in May 2023. Nowland fell backward after White shocked her and died a week later in hospital.
Police said at the time that Nowland sustained her fatal injuries from striking her head on the floor, rather than directly from the device’s debilitating electric shock.
Reuters
White’s employment is under review and is subject to legal processes, New South Wales state Police Commissioner Karen Webb told reporters after the verdict.
“The court has found Claire Nowland died as a result of the actions of a police officer. This should never have happened,” Webb said, as she offered her “deepest condolences” to Nowland’s family. The state’s police reviewed its Taser policy and training in January and no changes to it were made, she added.
In video played during the New South Wales Supreme Court trial, White was heard saying “nah, bugger it” before discharging his weapon, after the officers told Nowland 21 times to put the knife down. White, 34, told the jury he had been taught that any person wielding a knife was dangerous, the Guardian reported.
But after an eight-day trial, the jury rejected arguments by White’s lawyers that his use of the Taser was a proportionate response to the threat posed by Nowland, who weighed about 100 pounds.
White and other officers were called to the nursing home by staff who told them a woman was “armed with a knife.”
Police said they urged Nowland to drop the serrated steak knife before she started moving toward them “at a slow pace,” with her walking frame, prompting White to fire his taser at her.
The prosecutor argued that White’s use of the Taser was “utterly unnecessary and obviously excessive,” local news outlets said.
The extraordinary case provoked debate about how officers in the state use Tasers, a device that incapacitates people using electricity.
Nowland, a resident of Yallambee Lodge, a nursing home in the town of Cooma, was survived by eight children, 24 grandchildren and 31 great-grandchildren, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported.
Lawyers for Nowland’s family filed a separate civil suit last year against the New South Wales state government, seeking damages on behalf of her estate for alleged battery and assault. The suit was settled on private terms in March this year.
Reuters
Cooma businessman and community advocate Andrew Thaler, speaking on Australian television not long after the incident, said Nowland was, “about 5-foot-2 and weighs all of 43 kilos [about 95 pounds], she can’t walk on her own without walking assistance.”
“The use of a Taser, when a kind word was all she needed, if she was confused — which is what happens with people who have dementia — she needed kind words and assistance and help,” Thaler said. “She didn’t need the force of the law.”
