A now former police officer who fatally Tasered a 95-year-old dementia patient in New South Wales could receive a jail term at a Friday sentence hearing.
Kristian James Samuel White was found guilty of manslaughter after Tasering Clare Nowland at Yallambee Lodge aged-care home in the southern NSW town of Cooma in the early hours of 17 May 2023.
He faced a sentence hearing in the NSW supreme court on Friday, during which prosecutors were expected to argue he should serve time behind bars.
Michael Nowland, the eldest son of Clare Nowland, told the court of the trauma of losing his mother. He said he fell into a state of shock at the “inhumane act” perpetrated on his mother.
“This was unfathomable,” he said.
“Who in their right mind would do this to a frail 95-year-old lady?”
“To this day I am traumatised by this gutless coward act. This continues to cause me sleepless nights and anger, blaming myself as to how I could have negated this act and protected my mother.”
Michael Nowland described his mother as “the most caring person in the world”, who was not allowed to die with dignity.
“The Nowland family want justice and fairness.”
White’s barrister had previously argued a jail sentence was not inevitable given the nature of his offending.
At the time of the incident, Nowland was holding a knife and was uncompliant with requests from staff, a court was told during a trial in November.
After being Tasered by White, she fell to the ground and fractured her skull, dying in hospital a week later.
Despite White arguing he felt the great-grandmother posed a threat at the time, a jury unanimously found him guilty of manslaughter.
He was sacked from the force almost a week after the verdict but later launched legal proceedings challenging that decision.
Supreme court judge Ian Harrison refused a motion in December for White to be taken into custody, finding it possible he ultimately would not see the inside of a jail cell.
Harrison noted at the time he did not want to “cause distress or frustration” to those who see nothing other than a sentence of full-time imprisonment appropriate for White.
“I should not want to give unwarranted hope to Mr White that he will avoid a sentence of full-time imprisonment,” the judge said at the time.
“I am simply not comfortable making … a decision as a bail authority with respect to Mr White based on a conclusion that he will be sentenced to imprisonment to be served by full-time detention.”
Police and paramedics were called to Nowland’s nursing home after the great-grandmother grabbed two steak knives from a kitchen and raised them against residents and staff before throwing one at a carer.
White pulled the Taser’s trigger after three minutes of negotiations to get her to put down the remaining knife.
He was heard in video footage played at his trial saying “nah, bugger it” before Tasering Nowland in the torso.
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