Clare Nowland taser footage will not be released to public
NSW Labor has voted alongside One Nation’s Mark Latham to keep the police body camera footage showing the tasering of 95-year-old Clare Nowland under wraps.
Police & Courts
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NSW Labor has voted alongside One Nation’s Mark Latham to keep the police body camera footage showing the tasering of 95-year-old Clare Nowland under wraps.
Shadow industrial relations minister Damien Tudehope moved a motion in parliament on Wednesday calling on the government to immediately release the camera footage into the incident.
Agriculture minister Tara Moriarty said while the government wanted answers to what occurred they did not want serious police matters to be politicised.
One Nation MP Rod Roberts said releasing the video would do nothing but cause distress for the family.
“Imagine if it was your mother, your grandmother, your great grandmother plastered all over the nightly news for the voyeuristic joy of the leader of the opposition,” he said.
“Releasing the video will take it no where.”
New Police Minister breaks her silence on aged care tasering
Police Minister Yasmin Catley has been accused of going “missing in action” after an officer tasered a 95-year-old great grandmother and left her fighting for life.
In her first public statements since Clare Nowland was tasered at her Cooma nursing home last Wednesday, Ms Catley accused Liberals of “politicising” the matter when she revealed a worker at the council-run Yallambee Lodge facility had “received at least one death threat”.
“Let that be on your conscience if you want to keep going down this path,” she told Opposition MPs in parliament on Tuesday.
“That there is a very serious investigation underway … which we know is being run by the homicide squad,” she said. “I support the work that they do.”
Ms Catley’s spokesman later told The Daily Telegraph that details of the threat came from Monaro MP Steve Whanwho had received information “about a verbal threat of harm being conveyed against a Cooma Council employee”. Police are investigating the threats.
Ms Catley said she was first informed of the incident on the day it happened and told Premier Chris Minns the same day. Ms Catley on Tuesday said the incident was “shocking”.
“I particularly send my condolences and my deepest sympathies of course to the Nowland family,” she said.
Senior Constable Kristian White has been suspended on full pay from the NSW Police Force while a team of detectives investigate the events leading to Mrs Nowland being tasered just after 4am last Wednesday.
Ms Catley insisted a police investigation should be allowed to “run its proper course without any prejudice or interference,” declining to say whether she would watch body camera footage of the incident.
Responding to the comments, Liberal Leader Mark Speakman accused Ms Catley of being “missing in action”.
He called for a critical incident investigation to be publicly released when it is completed and said the minister should ensure the probe is conducted with “robustness, transparency, accountability, and ultimately, timeliness”.
The Law Enforcement Conduct Commission has called for Critical Incident Investigations to be finalised three months after any court proceedings end or, if there are no court proceedings, within six months of a critical incident being declared.
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