A police officer’s good character means he would only have Tasered a 95-year-old woman if it were legal and would not have lied about it, a jury has been told.
Dramatic footage of the incident taken by nursing home CCTV and police body cameras was shown in a New South Wales Supreme Court manslaughter trial against police constable Kristian White.
In the clips, the 34-year-old officer is heard saying “fuck no” before shooting 95-year-old Clare Nowland in the torso.
Defense lawyer Troy Edwards SC asked the jury on Tuesday to consider that his client was of good character and had committed no previous criminal offenses when considering their verdict.
“Are you the kind of person… who would use a Taser on someone without a legal reason to do so?” asked.
“Is he the kind of guy who listens to all this evidence, sits on the witness stand, swears an oath to God, and looks the jury in the eye and tells them a bunch of lies?”
White fired his stun gun at Ms Nowland in a treatment room at the Yallambee Lodge nursing home in the southern New South Wales town of Cooma during the early hours of May 17, 2023.
The jury has been asked to take Kristian White’s good character into account when delivering their verdict.
Jurors have been shown dramatic footage of Clare Nowland being Tasered
The great-grandmother, who had symptoms of dementia and was holding a steak knife, fell backwards and hit her head before dying a week later in hospital.
The threat she posed caused fear among those who lived through that moment, Edwards told the jury.
“It feels very different when you’re there, it feels very different when Mrs. Nowland is the one looking into your eyes,” he said.
Before being shot, the 95-year-old man had been asked 20 times to stop or sit down and 21 times to drop or put down the knife, Edwards said.
White and Acting Sergeant Jessica Pank had attempted to physically disarm Ms Nowland and kick the wheels of her walker to keep her contained in the room, he argued.
“You would think that when she walked out that door, her options were over,” he told the jury.
Crown prosecutor Brett Hatfield SC said White’s true motives were revealed by the two words he spoke before pulling the trigger.
“What the defendant said before firing the Taser was completely inconsistent with the fact that he intended to avoid an imminent violent confrontation,” he said.
Great-grandmother the night she was shot with a Taser (pictured)
“No, fuck it.” You could understand that to mean that he was fed up, impatient, and unwilling to wait any longer.
No reasonable person would have thought violence was imminent because Nowland’s speed meant it took him a minute to move three feet before he was shot with a Taser, Hatfield said.
He was also two or three meters away from White, Sergeant Pank, two paramedics and a registered nurse.
‘Who could he have hurt at that moment? Nobody,” Mr. Hatfield said.
The prosecutor took aim at White’s credibility, saying he refused to answer direct questions about whether Mrs. Nowland appeared frail or moved slowly.
The officer also did a “complete about-face” when asked about the precise moment he was prepared to fire the gun and whether he thought the nursing home resident was going to act with superhuman strength, the jury heard. .
“Their responses were malleable and changeable even with a few questions,” Hatfield said.
Claims by White’s partner Sergeant Pank and paramedic Anna Hofner that Ms Nowland posed a threat were inconsistent with video footage showing the elderly woman motionless inside the treatment room as she was shot with a Taser. , argument.
White’s police report claiming the 95-year-old man was waving a blade and holding a boning knife did not match the video or documentary evidence, the jury heard.
The officer has been charged with criminally negligent homicide and committing an unlawful and dangerous act.
Judge Ian Harrison will make closing remarks to jurors on Wednesday before they consider their verdict.