Final hours before 95-year-old fatally tasered by police officer revealed in court
The chain of events that led to a great-grandmother being fatally tasered by a police officer have been laid bare in court.
The sequence of events that led to a 95-year-old woman being fatally tasered by a police officer have been laid bare in court.
Clare Nowland died of injuries sustained when Senior Constable Kristian White discharged his Taser at her chest in Yallambee Lodge nursing home in Cooma on May 17 last year.
The police officer is facing trial in the NSW Supreme Court after pleading not guilty to manslaughter over the great-grandmother’s death.
The Crown prosecution alleges he breached his duty of care to Mrs Nowland and caused her unlawful death by either criminal negligence or a dangerous act.
The 34-year-old does not dispute that he discharged the weapon that caused Mrs Nowland’s death, but his lawyers argue it was a proportionate reaction to the risk she posed by holding a knife.
During the first week of the trial, the jury was told how the final hours unfolded before the deadly confrontation.
3am
Approximately two hours before she was fatally tasered in the nursing home, Mrs Nowland went missing from her room.
Surveillance footage shown to the jury shows the 95-year-old relying on her four-wheeled walking frame as she shuffles around the nursing home in pink pyjamas.
The jury has heard she was seen holding two knives as she entered the rooms of four of her fellow residents.
In a statement read to the court by Crown prosecutor Brett Hatfield SC, a 90-year-old man said he noticed the knives but Mrs Nowland “didn’t threaten or raise them at me” before being ushered out of the room.
A statement from the 84-year-old man said Mrs Nowland had then entered his room while he was asleep and had a standoff with nurses during which she refused to leave and waved knives in the air.
Mrs Nowland claimed the room was hers and refused to leave, the court was told.
Nursing assistant Mamta Rai told the court on Thursday that Mrs Nowland threw one of the steak knives at her, but it fell on the floor.
She agreed with the suggestion from Constable White’s lawyer Troy Edwards SC that she had been scared and it was a “very frightening” experience.
The court was told Mrs Nowland found it difficult to follow instructions and became uncharacteristically aggressive in the months leading up to her death, which a geriatrician attributed to her undiagnosed dementia.
4am
The knife-throwing incident prompted nurse Rosaline Baker to call triple-0 for assistance with Mrs Nowland, whom she described as “very aggressive” and holding two knives.
An ambulance was dispatched and police were notified due to the involvement of knives.
However, when two paramedics and the police arrived, Mrs Nowland was nowhere to be found.
A lengthy search of the nursing home grounds ensued, which was captured on the home’s surveillance footage.
Mrs Nowland can be seen standing around the corner as the officers and nursing home staff assemble in the reception area before commencing their search.
After they exit the building, the 95-year-old walks slowly towards the room where she would be fatally tasered.
Just after 4.30am, before she went into the room and sat down, she encountered Ms Baker and raised her remaining knife.
“I was kind of concerned, not knowing whether she was really going to attack me or not,” Ms Baker told the court on Wednesday.
“Every time (I asked) her to give me the knife, she was pointing it to me”.
5am
Just after 5am, Mrs Nowland was found sitting inside a nurses office with her walking frame and grasping a knife and a pen.
Footage shown in court reveals Constable White, Acting Sergeant Jessica Pank, and two paramedics gathered at the doorway peering into the room.
They can be heard urging the great-grandmother to stay seated and put down the knife. She instead put down the pen, the court heard.
“She didn’t seem to acknowledge anything I said,” paramedic Anna Hofner told the court.
Mrs Nowland struggled to her feet using her walking frame and started to slowly move towards the doorway, but Ms Hofner stepped back because “she was too close for my comfort”.
“I believe she was close enough that if she’d tried to strike out with her knife, I could have potentially been hit,” she said on Thursday.
Ms Hofner clarified that was her fear at the time, but she could have stepped back and “at no time” did she feel like she was in immediate danger.
She agreed with Mr Hatfield there was “no danger” of any of the assembled people being struck by Mrs Nowland.
When Constable Pank attempted to approach her to grab the knife, the footage shows the great-grandmother halting her progress and raising the weapon.
“I remember I was scared for my physical safety at this point, trying to get the knife because it looked really sharp and her eyes were dark,” Constable Pank said.
“When I got close, it was this wave of darkness that went over her face which did put a little bit of fear in me of being close to her to see that, yes a wave of fear.”
She agreed that she was easily able to step backwards out of harm’s way because of Mrs Nowland’s slow movements and mobility issues.
As the nonagenarian inched forward, Constable White asked her repeatedly to put down the knife.
“We’re not playing this game Clare, put that down,” Constable White can be heard telling the great-grandmother in the body worn camera footage of the incident.
“Clare, stop now. You see this? This is a taser.”
The footage shows Constable White lifting and activating the taser’s warning system, which released a loud noise and a pulsating light towards Mrs Nowland.
“You keep coming, you’re going to get tased,” he told her.
However, Mrs Nowland continued to move towards the door with both hands on her walker.
“Stop, just … Nah, bugger it,” the police officer said before deploying his Taser at her chest.
“Got her … grab it”.
The 95-year-old woman, who weighed less than 48 kgs, shook and slumped forward before lurching backwards and slamming against the floor.
The footage shows the police officers rushing forward as she fell, with Constable White keeping an arm on her shoulder.
Aftermath
Paramedic Kingsley Newman told the court on Thursday that Mrs Nowland’s injuries developed with “unusual and concerning” speed.
He noted a nearly 5cm haematoma and “some facial droop on the opposite side to the injury, indicating a pretty significant brain bleed”.
Additionally, he testified he had seen a burn mark on Mrs Nowland’s body which mimicked the arc of the Taser probes.
Mrs Nowland was rushed to Cooma Hospital but she succumbed to her injuries a week later.
In an incident report, Constable White wrote he had decided to deploy his Taser because “a violent confrontation was imminent” and he wanted to “prevent injury to police”.
Sergeant Jarrod Dawson said that when the 34-year-old returned to Cooma Police Station around 7.15am, he explained he felt he “needed to” deploy the Taser.
“He said: ‘I’ve had a look and supposedly we aren’t meant to tase elderly people, but in the circumstances I needed to. Maybe this will be my first critical incident’,” Sergeant Dawson recalled on Friday.
Senior constable Pank, who was an Acting Sergeant and Constable White’s superior on the day, said she thought they had “done the best we could in the situation”.
She was asked if she, as a supervisor and with the training she had, thought it was appropriate that Constable White discharged his Taser at Ms Nowland.
“I was comfortable with the situation,” Constable Pank confirmed in a statement read to the court, but added she wasn’t happy about it.
Constable White’s trial will continue on Monday before Justice Ian Harrison.
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