Nursing home staff, paramedics, and police can be seen searching for Clare Nowland, 95, in the minutes before she was fatally tasered by Senior Constable Kristian White.
Nursing home staff, paramedics, and police can be seen searching for Clare Nowland, 95, in the minutes before she was fatally tasered by Senior Constable Kristian White.
Surveillance footage has revealed the search for a 95-year-old woman in the hour before she was fatally tasered by a police officer in a rural nursing home.
The Crown alleges he breached his duty of care to Nowland and caused her unlawful death by either criminal negligence or a dangerous act.
Nursing home staff, paramedics, and police can be seen searching for Clare Nowland, 95, in the minutes before she was fatally tasered by Senior Constable Kristian White.
The 34-year-old does not dispute that he deployed his weapon and it caused Nowland’s death, but his lawyers maintain it was a proportionate reaction to the risk she posed by holding a knife.
The jury has heard Nowland was carrying two knives and using a walking frame to wander around the nursing home after 3am.
She entered the rooms of four of her fellow nursing home residents during that two-hour period and refused to put down the knives when asked.
The court heard the 95-year-old had become uncharacteristically aggressive in recent months, which a geriatrician told the court could be attributed to her undiagnosed dementia.
‘Every time [I asked] her to give her the knife, she was pointing it to me’
In the early hours of May 17, the jury was told Nowland threw a knife at one of the nursing assistants, which landed on the floor, and also held a knife towards nurse Rosaline Baker.
“I was kind of concerned, not knowing whether she was really going to attack me or not,” Baker told the court on Tuesday.
“Every time (I asked) her to give me the knife, she was pointing it to me”.
The nurse called triple-0 for assistance with Nowland, whom she described as “very aggressive” during the call.
An ambulance was dispatched and police were notified due to the presence of knives.
Clare Nowland was tasered by police at an aged care home in Cooma.
Yet when paramedics and officers arrived, Nowland could not be located.
A lengthy search of the nursing home grounds ensued, which has been captured on the home’s surveillance footage.
Nowland can be seen ambling slowly through the home in her pink pyjamas before she enters the office where she would later be fatally tasered by Constable White.
In footage previously shown to the court but not released to the public, the police officer asks her repeatedly to put down the knife and sit down.
When she didn’t comply, he activated his Taser’s audio and visual warning signals and warned her: “You keep coming, you’re going to get tased.”
The great-grandmother continued to proceed with both hands on her walking frame and Constable White said “Stop, just … Nah, bugger it,” and discharged the weapon.
On Thursday, the jury is expected to hear evidence from Constable White’s colleague who attended the nursing home with him on May 17.
Two carers from the nursing home who were present and assisted in the search for Nowland are also set to occupy the witness box.
