A former constable who fatally Tasered a 95-year-old dementia sufferer in a nursing home will avoid jail after a judge ruled he had ‘completely misunderstood’ the situation.
Kristian White, 35, was placed on a two-year community corrections order following a sentencing hearing in the NSW Supreme Court on Friday.
White was found guilty of manslaughter in November after he Tasered Clare Nowland inside the Yallambee Lodge aged-care home in the early hours of May 17, 2023.
The ex-cop will now need to perform 425 hours of community service work and be supervised by a community corrections officer.
In handing down his decision, Justice Ian Harrison found that White made a ‘terrible mistake’ but that his crime fell at the lower end of objective seriousness.
At a prior sentencing hearing, prosecutors pushed Justice Harrison to jail White for the crime. However, the judge instead sided with the ex-officer’s lawyers.
They argued he only made an error of judgement and should receive a more lenient sentence for that reason.
Justice Harrison said a jail term would be ‘disproportionate’ and that White didn’t pose a risk of reoffending or a danger to the community.
Former cop Kristian White will avoid jail after a judge ruled he had ‘completely misunderstood’ the situation (White and his wife are pictured leaving Supreme Court of NSW on Friday)
His wife was forced to shield herself from the media as they left the court
Mrs Nowland, a great-grandmother, was holding a knife while using a walking frame and had been ignoring attempts by staff to disarm her
Mrs Nowland’s son, Michael, told media outside the court that the result was ‘obviously very disappointing for the family’.
‘Justice and fairness – that’s all we wanted,’ he said.
‘A slap on the wrist for someone that’s killed our mother – it’s very, very hard to sort of process that, so speaking out is very emotional.’
Mrs Nowland was holding a steak knife while using a walking frame and had been ignoring attempts by staff to disarm her moments before she was Tasered.
White said “nah, bugger it” before firing the Taser’s barbs at her chest, causing her to fall and strike her head. The great-grandmother suffered a bleed on the brain and died in hospital a week later.
UNSW criminology expert Helen Gibbon told AAP it was very rare for Australian police officers to face prosecution for killing a person in the line of duty and even rarer for police to be convicted of an offence in relation to a killing.
White was removed from the police force in December, less than a week after a jury found him guilty of Mrs Nowland’s manslaughter. He has launched legal action for a review of that decision.
Mrs Nowland is pictured in her Cooma nursing home just moments before she was Tasered
