<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?> <docID>341280</docID> <postdate>2025-03-28 08:31:08</postdate> <headline>Cop to face rare sentence over grandma’s Taser death</headline> <body><p><img class="size-full wp-image-341281" src="https://citynews.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/20250207123732467280-original-resized.jpg" alt="" width="900" height="600" /></p> <caption>Former senior constable Kristian White is set to hear whether he'll be jailed for manslaughter. (Steve Markham/AAP PHOTOS)</caption> <p><span class="kicker-line">By <strong>Miklos Bolza</strong> in Sydney</span></p> <p><strong>A police officer who fatally shot an elderly aged-care resident with his Taser could become one of the few members of the force to be jailed over a death on duty.</strong></p> <p>Former senior constable Kristian James Samuel White is due to be sentenced for the tragic incident in the southern NSW town of Cooma that led to the death of 95-year-old Clare Nowland.</p> <p>On Friday, he will learn whether he is jailed for her manslaughter after firing his weapon at her inside the Yallambee Lodge aged-care home in the early hours of May 17, 2023.</p> <p>Mrs Nowland was holding a knife while using a walking frame and had been ignoring attempts by staff to disarm her.</p> <p>The 35-year-old officer said "nah, bugger it" before firing the Taser's barbs at her chest, causing her to fall and strike her head.</p> <p>The great-grandmother suffered a bleed on the brain and died in hospital a week later.</p> <p>UNSW criminology expert Helen Gibbon said it was very rare for Australian police officers to face prosecution for killing a person in the line of duty.</p> <p>"It is even rarer for police to be convicted of an offence in relation to a killing," she told AAP.</p> <p>Prosecutors have pushed NSW Supreme Court Justice Ian Harrison to jail White for the crime, but the ex-officer's lawyers have argued he only made an error of judgment and should receive a more lenient sentence.</p> <p><img class=" wp-image-284042" src="https://citynews.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/tasered-grandmother-e1695860429815.jpeg" alt="" width="613" height="408" /></p> <caption>Clare Nowland died after she was tasered by a police officer in her Cooma aged care home.</caption> <p>In deciding to pursue a criminal case against an officer, the Director of Public Prosecutions would already take into account that police worked in difficult, often volatile circumstances, Associate Professor Gibbon noted.</p> <p>"There must also be a willingness on behalf of a prosecuting agency to prosecute a police officer who kills a person in the course of carrying out their duties, as well as a willingness on the part of juries to convict a police officer," she said.</p> <p>"Historically, such willingness has been lacking."</p> <p>It was difficult to predict how Justice Harrison would rule as there were factors pulling towards both a jail term and a sentence served in the community, Assoc Prof Gibbon added.</p> <p>In Queensland, Senior Sergeant Chris Hurley was acquitted of manslaughter in 2007 over the death of Cameron Doomadgee on Palm Island.</p> <p>In 2022 in the Northern Territory, Constable Zachary Rolfe stood trial for the murder of Kumanjayi Walker but was also acquitted.</p> <p>In NSW in 2023, Sergeant Matthew Kelly was acquitted of manslaughter but convicted of negligent driving occasioning death after the fatal police pursuit of Jack Roberts.</p> <p>White was removed from the police force in December, less than a week after a jury found him guilty of Mrs Nowland's manslaughter.</p> <p>He has launched legal action for a review of that decision.</p> </body>