The New South Wales policeman who fatally shot a 95-year-old great-grandmother with a Taser has said he never intended for her to be harmed, and remains “entirely devastated” for her family’s loss.
Sen Const Kristian James Samuel White shot Clare Nowland with his Taser in a Cooma nursing home in the early hours of 17 May 2023, after she refused to put down a sharp knife. Nowland fell and struck her head, dying a week later from inoperable bleeding on the brain.
On Wednesday this week, White was found guilty of manslaughter, in a unanimous jury verdict in the NSW supreme court.
On Friday, justice Ian Harrison continued White’s bail until February – the police officer has not spent any time in prison – telling the court jail was not an “inevitable” sentence.
In the hours after White’s bail was continued, his lawyer, Warwick Anderson, issued a statement on his behalf.
“Mr White extends his thoughts and prayers to the Nowland family. Since that fateful morning, Kristian has tried to deal with the legal case against him, while confronting the pain that discharging his Taser ultimately resulted in Mrs Nowland’s death,” the statement, provided to Guardian Australia, said.
“He has never lost sight of the fact that Mrs Nowland passed away and he is acutely aware that the Nowland family is deeply hurt by what happened.
“Mr White gave sworn evidence before the Supreme Court in his trial, that he never intended for Mrs Nowland to be harmed or injured – and that he was, and remains, entirely devastated for the Nowland family’s loss.”
Nowland’s family also issued a statement after a brief hearing in the court Friday.
“The Nowland family are disappointed that the court has today refused to place Kristian White into detention,” it read.
“The family is struggling to understand why the court felt it was appropriate to leave Mr White on bail and free in the Cooma community without any real restrictions in light of that conviction.”
In court on Friday, Harrison continued White’s bail on the conditions he remained of good behaviour, did not travel overseas, and did not communicate with Nowland’s family.
White will return to court in February for sentencing.
Harrison told the court he was not in a position to make a decision on White’s ultimate liberty, but that a jail sentence was not “inevitable”.
“I should not want to give unwarranted hope to Mr White that he will avoid a sentence of full-time imprisonment or to cause distress or frustration to those whose reasonably available and strongly held view is that nothing less than such a result would be appropriate.
“I am not prepared to say, in what I consider to be an acceptably judicial way, that it is realistically inevitable that Mr White will be sentenced to imprisonment to be served by full-time detention.”
The judge said on the “notoriously protean nature of manslaughter offences” and the “extraordinary range” of sentencing options available to the court: from 25 years’ imprisonment to a non-custodial sentence.
Harrison said the case was “unlike any other that I have had to confront” over nearly two decades on the bench.
“Ms Nowland’s death resulted from what was on almost any view a failure by Mr White correctly to assess the seriousness of the threat confronting him or, on another view, a failure to recognise or appreciate that he was not confronted with a serious threat at all. It was no more and no less than an error of judgment with fatal consequences.”
The judge said White did not intend to kill or seriously injure Nowland.
“Mr White did not act out of anger, or malice, or revenge, or retribution, or envy, or jealousy, or avarice, or greed, or some misplaced desire to inflict harm or to avoid detection for some crime.
“Mr White made a significant mistake in the course of his work. The fact that the jury’s verdict represents a conclusion that Mr White’s actions should be punished as a crime does not alone foreclose upon the ultimate sentencing outcome.”
The prosecution had applied for White to be detained ahead of sentencing next year, arguing the police officer’s imprisonment was “realistically inevitable”.
But White’s defence barrister, Troy Edwards SC, argued his client’s bail should be continued until he is sentenced and invited the judge to consider that the manslaughter offence was the “lowest end” in terms of seriousness.
Evidence filed with the court showed that were White to be jailed, he would be placed into protective custody because of his status as a police officer.
“The prisoner would be classified as ‘protection non-association’ meaning he will not be in the physical presence of other inmates at any time,” Det Sgt Mitchell Bosworth of the homicide squad wrote.
NSW police announced on Thursday morning that White was suspended from the force without pay after his conviction. His employment with the police force was still under consideration.
“Regarding the officer’s position in the NSW Police Force, the NSW Police Commissioner is following the procedure mandated under the Police Act 1990, s181D,” the police said in a statement on Thursday.
The section of the act referred to states that the police commissioner can remove an officer from the force if they “do not have confidence in the police officer’s suitability to continue as a police officer”.
