NSW Liberals call for police minister removal after internal emails reveal Cooma taser timeline
NSW Police Minister faces calls for her sacking over the handling of the taser death of 96-year-old Clare Nowland.
The NSW Liberals have called on Premier Chris Minns to dump Police Minister Yasmin Catley after The Australian revealed the police’s explanation for not initially revealing that 96-year-old Clare Nowland was tasered was, as one MP put it, “complete fabrication”.
On Wednesday, The Australian revealed how internal documents showed the next of kin and family of Ms Nowland – fatally shot with a taser by a senior constable at the care home she lived in on May 17 – were briefed on the incident across the day, before the release of controversial statement that omitted the use of a taser.
In May and June, Police Commissioner Karen Webb told media that there was “no cover up”, rather the force were following procedure to “notify the family”.
“It was necessary for us to make sure that the family were aware of what the circumstances were,” Commissioner Webb told 2GB.
“We didn’t want the family to hear on radio and TV what had happened to their mum, so we had to be a bit sensitive to that and when we were able to talk about it, we did.”
On Thursday, the attention focused to Ms Catley, with the Liberal opposition calling for her resignation or sacking over an alleged “mislead”. Ms Catley had previously echoed to parliament the same reasoning for the omission as the commissioner.
“She should resign, if she won’t resign she should be sacked,” Liberal leader Mark Speakman said.
The police minister told parliament there was “no smoking gun” and she had answered the questions about the release “1000 times”, although didn’t directly respond to the fact the initial explanation to omit the taser had been called into question.
“The minister has repeatedly told the house that the reason the public were not told initially about the taser was that the family needed to hear it first from the police and not through the media,” Mr Speakman said.
“If that were the case, that would be perfectly understandable. But we now know many months after this tragic episode happened, that that is not the truth.
“We now know that the family were told on the morning of this tragic episode what had happened. The minister has misled parliament and pretended that there was some other reason for it.”
NSW Police have declined to comment on the time frame of when the family were told. Ms Webb declined to reveal whether she was aware the family had already been briefed when she told the media previously they’d omitted the taser so as to “notify the family” first.
Opposition police spokesman Paul Toole, a former police minister in the Perrottet government, said the newly released emails were “concerning”.
“We shouldn’t be talking about this incident five months later,” he said, calling the subsequent police and government actions after the incident a “cover up”.
Simultaneous to The Australian’s own report, it was revealed the privacy commissioner had criticised the minister for withholding, or severely redacting, information about the fatal tasering.
Mr Speakman said it was “a cover up of the cover up”.
“The privacy commissioner has told them (the minister’s office) to go back and do it (provide more records pertaining to the case) all again,” he said.
“So not only do we know the answers that were given to explain the delay in telling the public (about the taser) were untrue, we now know that attempts to heavily redact the documents and information were unjustified.”
NSW MP Rod Roberts – who requested the tranche of documents that revealed the emails, and a 20-year cop before entering parliament – told The Australian on Wednesday of his deep “concern” with what the email appeared to show.
He said on Thursday that the explanation as to why the taser was omitted was “complete fabrication”.
“They were not transparent and that’s a concern,” Mr Roberts said, who reiterated he “bled blue”.
“This is not a criticism of frontline police, who themselves are being let down by senior management who are more concerned with PR and spin than running the police force.”
Ms Nowland, who suffered from dementia, died in hospital on May 24.
Senior Constable Kristian White – who allegedly fired the taser – has been charged with recklessly causing grievous bodily harm, assault occasioning actual bodily harm, and common assault. The matter remains before the NSW courts.
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