A court has been shown an elderly woman’s harrowing final moments before she was fatally tasered by a cop.
Senior Constable Kristian James Samuel White shot his stun gun at great-grandmother Clare Nowland at the Yallambee Lodge aged-care home in the southern NSW town of Cooma in the early hours of May 17, 2023.
The 95-year-old hit her head on the floor when she fell and had an inoperable bleed on the brain, dying at Cooma Hospital a week later.
A court heard on Wednesday that Ms Nowland’s level of dementia meant she would have been unable to comply with orders barked at her by White before being fatally Tasered.
White, who says he acted lawfully under his duties as a police officer, returned to his NSW Supreme Court trial on Wednesday.
The Supreme Court also released security vision of the moments leading up to Ms Nowland being Tasered.
The video shows Ms Nowland with her walking frame in a corridor moving out of shot as emergency services gather in a separate corridor leading into the kitchen area.
The group is led away by White before Ms Nowland moves out of the room.
The footage released by the court shows Clare Nowland ‘slowly moving’ with her walker moments before she was tasered (pictured)
Senior Constable Kristian James Samuel White was captured on CTTV arriving at the nursing home shortly before the incident
Registered nurse Rosaline Baker, who was on shift at the time, told the court of how she found Nowland standing in the corridor in her pink pyjamas, ‘moving slowly’ with her walker, and holding two steak knives and a quarter-full jug of prunes.
The nurse recalled how Ms Nowland refused to hand over the items, but ‘eventually’ gave up the prunes.
Ms Baker said the great-grandmother still had the knives as she moved in and out of the bedrooms of four residents, and ‘asked for chocolates’, which were eventually offered by a fellow resident.
The CCTV also shows White arriving at the nursing home shortly before the incident.
Geriatrician Susan Kurrle told the jury she diagnosed Nowland with moderate to moderately severe dementia at the time she was Tasered.
While still mobile thanks to her four-wheeled walker, the 95-year-old would have been unable to understand what was happening around her or comply with instructions, she said.
In video footage played in court on Tuesday, White could be seen shouting orders at Nowland as she shuffled forward while gripping both a steak knife and her walker from within one of the facility’s treatment rooms.
‘You keep coming, you’re going to get Tased,’ the officer told her before he fired.
Great-grandmother Clare Nowland, 95, (pictured) hit her head after being Tasered and died a week later in hospital
Kurrle said Ms Nowland’s behaviour had escalated in the three months before her death.
‘She was constantly resistant to any changes or anything they asked her to do and she didn’t appear to understand,’ the expert said.
‘With hindsight, it’s very clear that the symptoms and signs were developing over that time.’
Ms Nowland exhibited anti-social behaviour in early 2023, including taking residents’ food, trying to undress in social areas, disturbing residents in their rooms, wandering around in the cold and dark, and refusing to accept staff assistance, the jury heard.
The court was played CCTV footage of three incidents at Yallambee Lodge in March and April 2023, when the 95-year-old physically lashed out, rammed one staff member with her walker, and climbed an embankment and got stuck in a tree.
She was admitted to hospital on April 16 and was prescribed the anti-psychotic drug Risperdal to calm her aggressive behaviour after punching and biting staff.
She was settled with some rosary beads and tea after the incident.
Under questioning by defence barrister Troy Edwards SC, Kurrle admitted Ms Nowland’s behaviour in the moments before she was Tasered could have resulted from staff deciding to reduce the dosage of Risperdal two days prior.
Senior Constable Kristian James Samuel White arrived at court today with his wife (pictured)
Registered nurse Caroline Baker worked at Yallambee Lodge for just over two weeks and was on duty when White was called to the aged-care home.
She tried to get Nowland out of three other residents’ rooms about 3am on the day of the incident after the great-grandmother grabbed two steak knives and a jug of prunes from a kitchen, the court was told.
Baker said nothing unusual had been raised about the 95-year-old at handover when she started her shift.
The trial continues.
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