<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?> <docID>332820</docID> <postdate>2024-11-11 14:44:49</postdate> <headline>‘I needed to’: cop defends tasering aged-care resident</headline> <body><p><img class="size-full wp-image-332821" src="https://citynews.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/20241111143248905247-original-resized.jpg" alt="" width="900" height="600" /></p> <caption>Senior Constable Kristian White is accused of manslaughter over the tasering of an elderly woman. (Steve Markham/AAP PHOTOS)</caption> <p><span class="kicker-line">By <strong>Miklos Bolza</strong> in Sydney</span></p> <p><strong>A police officer believed he needed to stun a frail, elderly woman with dementia symptoms after numerous verbal warnings and an attempt to kick her walker failed to rid her of a steak knife, a jury has heard.</strong></p> <p>Senior Constable Kristian James Samuel White used his Taser on great-grandmother Clare Nowland at the Yallambee Lodge aged-care home in the southern NSW town of Cooma in the early hours of May 17, 2023.</p> <p>The 95-year-old hit her head on the floor when she fell and had an inoperable bleed on the brain, dying at Cooma Hospital a week later.</p> <p>White, 34, appeared in the NSW Supreme Court on Monday, when his barrister Troy Edwards SC said his client had a sworn duty as a police officer to counteract the risk that she posed.</p> <p>"As a violent confrontation was imminent and to prevent injury to police, the Taser was discharged," he told the jury.</p> <p>It was not in dispute that Mrs Nowland died because she was hit with his client's weapon, Mr Edwards said.</p> <p>But White had a sworn duty to protect others from injury or death and to prevent a breach of the peace, he told the jury.</p> <p>Mrs Nowland had taken her four-wheeled walking frame into a kitchen in the nursing home about 3am, taking two knives from a drawer.</p> <p>She then went into rooms where three residents were sleeping, turning on the lights, sitting on their beds and eventually throwing a knife at a carer who was trying to get her to drop the weapons.</p> <p>Registered nurse Rosalind Baker called triple zero, telling the operator an aggressive patient had raised a knife at staff.</p> <p>White, who was off-duty at the time, was called to the home along with his partner and two paramedics, prosecutor Brett Hatfield SC said.</p> <p>They cornered the 95-year-old in a nurses' station, where several verbal warnings were issued and White's partner tried unsuccessfully to kick the wheels out from her walker, jurors heard.</p> <p>"A short time later the accused said 'bugger it' and deliberately discharged his Taser towards Mrs Nowland," Mr Hatfield said.</p> <p>Back at Cooma police station, White allegedly spoke to one of his colleagues about the incident, the prosecutor said.</p> <p>"I've had a look and supposedly we aren't meant to tase elderly people," he allegedly said.</p> <p>"In this circumstance, I needed to."</p> <p>Mr Hatfield said White was criminally negligent by breaching his duty of care to Mrs Nowland not to injure or harm her.</p> <p>He also argued the police officer committed unlawful assault or battery, which a reasonable person would have realised would give rise to a risk of serious injury.</p> <div class="wire-column__preview__text" id="preview-body"> <p>Mrs Nowland's daughter Lesley Lloyd gave evidence at the trial, saying Ms Baker had called to say her mother had grabbed a knife and was causing a disturbance in the home.</p> <p>However, the registered nurse failed to tell Ms Lloyd of the tasering in a later call after the incident, instead saying the 95-year-old had merely fallen and was in hospital.</p> <p>It was only later on May 17 that she was informed by NSW Police that Mrs Nowland had been shot with a stun gun and fallen onto the floor, she told the jury.</p> <p>Jurors were also shown images of the steak knives used by Mrs Nowland and were played the triple-zero call that Ms Baker made.</p> <p>They will be shown CCTV footage of the incident on Tuesday as the trial continues.</p> </div> </body>