An ex-police officer spared jail for killing a 95-year-old woman didn’t give her “any real chance” to avoid being tasered during an encounter that lasted less than three minutes, a court has been told.
Then-senior constable Kristian James Samuel White fired his Taser at Clare Nowland minutes after being called to the Yallambee Lodge nursing home at Cooma in southern New South Wales.
She died in hospital a week after the incident in the early hours of May 17, 2023.
The 35-year-old was handed a two-year good behaviour bond and ordered to complete community service in March after a jury found him guilty of manslaughter.
Crown prosecutors appealed against the “manifestly inadequate” sentence when the case went to the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal in Sydney today.
Director of Public Prosecutions Sally Dowling SC argued that Supreme Court Justice Ian Harrison made a number of errors when he decided not to send White to prison.
She told the court Nowland suffered symptoms of dementia and relied on her walking frame to move around the building.
“All of the footage … shows how frail she was, how disorientated she was and how confused she was in the hours leading up to the events,” Dowling said.
The great-grandmother was “extremely vulnerable” at the time because she was tired, confused, frail and moved slowly.
She had no discernible reaction to his warnings or requests to drop the knife she was holding during the two minutes and 40 seconds interaction with White.
“At no time did Mrs Nowland advance brandishing the knife,” Dowling said.
She was stationary when he said “nah bugger it” and discharged the Taser at her chest, causing her to fall backwards and sustain a brain injury.
“(White) did not give her any real chance to avoid being tasered,” Dowling said.
“There were many other options available to him.”
Justice Harrison was wrong to conclude jailing White would be disproportionate to the seriousness of the offending, prosecutors claimed.
He also mistakenly found the police officer made a “terrible mistake” but his crime was less serious than other manslaughter offences, prosecutors claim.
In his judgment, Justice Harrison decided the need to deter other police officers from committing similar offences played “only a minor role” in his sentencing decision.
But Dowling believes he should have issued a strong warning to other police.
Nowland’s eldest son Michael slammed the sentence as “very disappointing” when it was handed down.
“A slap on the wrist for someone who’s killed our mother – it’s very, very hard to process that,” he said.
Nowland’s family attended every day of White’s trial and returned to fill rows of the public gallery during the appeal, which continues on Friday.
