A police officer who fatally tasered a 95-year-old woman in a nursing home said he tried to give her “every opportunity to drop the knife” she was carrying, but she had “made her intent clear: she was going to use that knife on anyone that got near her”.
Sen Const Kristian James Samuel White also told the court simply taking the knife out of Clare Nowland’s hand came with “risk, high risk”.
White tasered great-grandmother Nowland, who was armed with a serrated knife and threatening police and staff, at her Cooma nursing home in May 2023. She died a week later from head injuries sustained when she fell backwards from the force of the Taser.
White has pleaded not guilty to manslaughter. On the sixth day of his trial in the New South Wales supreme court, he entered the witness box for the first time and gave evidence that he felt the situation was getting more dangerous and Nowland, despite her age and frailty, posed an unacceptable risk.
“At the police academy we are taught ‘any person with a knife is a danger’,” he told the court.
White said efforts to communicate with Nowland, who appeared confused, had failed, and she had been undeterred by numerous verbal warnings and the Taser’s warning arc. Nowland, despite instructions to stop, continued to walk towards police, aided by her walker. She had raised the knife and thrust it towards police, White said.
“This situation had been going on for several hours, obviously it was not going to be resolved without the use of force,” he said.
“I didn’t want to have to tase Clare, but I was also weighing up the safety of everyone present and that the situation would have to be resolved in some way.”
White told the court Nowland posed a risk to the police, nursing home staff and paramedics present.
“Her intent was quite clear to us, she was going to use the knife on us. She indicated a clear threat to us: she would have attacked us with the knife if anyone came near her.”
He told the court he felt “the threat was increasing significantly”. “She was now pointing the knife at us, and clearly communicating the intent that she was going to use the knife if anyone got near her.
“I wanted to try to keep communicating to Clare, that because of her age, I wanted to give her … every opportunity possible to put down the knife.”
In his examination-in-chief, White’s barrister, Troy Edwards SC, asked him why he did not simply let Nowland walk out of the small room: “Why not just walk away?”
“That wouldn’t have resolved the situation,” White replied. “We’re likely putting more people’s safety at risk by letting her wander. Our job is to maintain the peace, despite her being a 95-year-old, letting her wander the corridor with a knife would definitely, in my mind, be a breach of that peace.”
In the early hours of 17 May, White was called, along with his police partner, Sgt Jess Pank, to the Yallambee Lodge nursing home in Cooma. Nowland – who weighed just 47.5kg – had been walking around the nursing home, armed with a knife, disturbing patients and posing risk to staff.
The court has heard Nowland did not respond to instructions over several hours to put down the knife, leading staff to call an ambulance and police. Nowland had not been formally diagnosed with dementia, but had displayed symptoms consistent with it.
After disappearing from a resident’s room, she was found in a nurses’ office.
White told the court he gave Nowland repeated verbal instructions to “put down the knife”. He said Nowland walked towards him and his police partner, Pank. White said he repeatedly told Nowland to drop the knife, but said she appeared not to understand the command: “She looked right through us.”
He then warned Nowland “you’re going to get tased”, and discharged his Taser at her. Nowland fell backwards, striking her head, and died a week later after suffering inoperable bleeding on the brain.
White’s barrister told the court in opening arguments it was not in dispute that the injuries caused by White tasering Nowland ultimately killed her. But he argued that White’s use of the Taser involved a reasonable use of force.
White gave evidence that he considered there was a risk to Nowland if he tasered her. But he said he had deployed his Taser twice previously, both times without serious injury.
“I didn’t think she’d be significantly injured.”
White was asked: “Did you consider it would result in her dying?”
“No,” White said. “I’m upset and devastated by it. I never intended for her to be injured by it at all. I accept Tasers cause an injury, but I’ve never seen it cause a serious injury.”
Under cross-examination, the crown prosecutor Brett Hatfield SC put it to White that Nowland posed no immediate risk to him or any other person.
White said a potential stabbing was “pretty imminent” and that Nowland had raised the knife at his police partner.
Hatfield put to White that “you could avoid being stabbed by stepping away”.
“It’s a possibility,” White replied.
White said he thought the Taser would temporarily incapacitate Nowland so she could be disarmed, and she would likely fall forward on to her walker, rather than backwards as she did.
He said he thought Nowland might suffer a minor burn injury, or puncture wound, from the Taser barbs. “I took it there would be some form of injury, as there always is with a Taser, but I didn’t think she would be seriously injured.”
White, under cross examination, agreed it was clear when they found Nowland sitting in the treatment room that she was small and elderly. But he said whether she was frail was a “subjective question” and he couldn’t give an answer on whether she appeared weak.
He disagreed that one of the responders could have walked up and taken it out of Nowland’s hand. “That strategy actually comes with risk, high risk,” he said.
However, he said he did not disagree with Pank’s suggestion at the time she could grab the knife off Nowland.
“I felt comfortable if she felt comfortable to walk into that room to attempt it,” White said. “She’s also my supervisor so I’m not going to say no.”
He told the court that once he raised the Taser he “felt like” he would use it but he did not feel it was justified to use it at that point. “I considered that I would still use communication to have her at least drop the knife,” White told the court.
White was questioned by Hatfield about his statement he wanted to give “as much time as possible” for Nowland to stop or drop the knife, despite the footage showing he only took one minute between discharging his Taser and firing it. White said he would have to take Hatfield’s “word for the seconds on the clock”.
Asked if White said “bugger it” because he was fed up, he said that it in reference to feeling the use of force was his only option at the time to ensure a “safe resolution”. He said the strategy to contain Nowland in the room was falling apart. He agreed, under questioning, that the paramedics, staff and Pank were a safe distance away.
When White returned to the police station after the incident, he agreed that he looked at the standard operating procedures (SOPs) in the course of writing his incident report into the police database.
Asked by Hatfield if he changed what he wrote after he saw that the procedures said it was advised that Tasers are not used against “elderly” people, he said he did not.
“Did it concern you that when you looked at the SOPs …?,” Hatfield asked.
“No because I still felt I met the criteria and the exceptional circumstances,” he said.
“Even though you didn’t have exceptional circumstances in mind when you did it?,” White asked.
“No, they weren’t on my mind,” he said.
White had also written in his report that Nowland had been carrying a boning knife because the knife looked like a similar boning knife he had at home. Asked if a boning knife is a sharper knife than a steak knife, he said it was, but then said it depends on the quality.
“At this point you knew it was a steak knife, do you agree,” Hatfield asked.
“Yes,” White said.
The trial, before Justice Ian Harrison, continues.
