A nurse who witnessed a police officer pulling a Taser on a 95-year-old nursing home resident said she had “never seen anything like that” and at first thought it was a torch.
Sen Const Kristian James Samuel White is on trial accused of the manslaughter of Clare Nowland, who died in May 2023 after being tasered. White has pleaded not guilty.
Appearing as a witness on Wednesday, the registered nurse Rosaline Baker told the court she had questioned why police were attending the rest home, and at first thought the Taser was a torch.
“In my years of experience as a nurse, almost 50 years, I’ve never seen anything like that,” Baker told the New South Wales supreme court.
“I was very, very concerned when she was falling to the ground.”
White tasered the great-grandmother – who moved with the aid of a walking frame and weighed 47.5kg – in a Snowy Mountains nursing home in May 2023 after repeated requests for her to put down a steak knife.
Nowland had been carrying the serrated steak knife in one hand and was supporting herself on her walker with the other hand when White discharged the Taser to disarm her.
Nowland died a week later from a head injury caused by being tasered, the court has heard.
White’s barrister, Troy Edwards SC, has told the court it is not in dispute that the injuries caused by White tasering Nowland ultimately killed her. But he argued that White’s use of the Taser involved a reasonable use of force.
The prosecutor, Brett Hatfield SC, has argued that White was guilty of manslaughter by way of criminal negligence or by way of an unlawful and dangerous act.
Prof Susan Kurrle, a geriatrician who appeared as a witness on Wednesday, told the court that Nowland displayed behaviour consistent with moderate to severe dementia.
She said it had impeded her ability “to understand what was happening to her and to comply with instructions”.
The court heard Nowland had made several attempts to escape the aged care home and there were incidents where she was agitated, aggressive, refused assistance from staff, wandered and disturbed other people.
The jury was shown CCTV of Nowland climbing into a tree and becoming stuck. Footage also showed her ramming a staff member with her walker.
Kurrle told the court these instances were increasing ahead of the night she was tasered.
“It is clearly in the three months before her death that the behaviours changed fairly dramatically,” Kurrle said.
When cross-examined by White’s barrister, the geriatrician said Nowland’s medication had been reduced.
Kurrle agreed when asked if Nowland’s increased aggressive behaviour could have been caused by the reduced dosage.
Kurrle also agreed under cross-examination that, given her behaviour, it would have been appropriate for Nowland to have been in a dementia-specific unit.
The Yallambee Lodge nursing home in Cooma, however, did not have one.
The court heard that people with dementia could show increased strength when they were upset or angry.
Baker was one of three staff working the evening Nowland was Tasered.
Baker told the court she was responding to a call for help from another resident at about 3am when she found Nowland “moving slowly” in the corridor with her walker. She was holding two steak knives and a jug of prunes.
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“I just greeted her and asked her if she needed any help,” Baker told the court.
Baker detailed how on multiple occasions she tried to coax Nowland, who began wandering into residents’ rooms and around the facility, to hand over the knives.
Baker tried to call Nowland’s daughter for support and, after she was unable to reach her, she called triple 0 to request an ambulance.
“The officer told me that the police was coming and I actually inquired ‘why them’ … the police officer said ‘you said she had a knife, that’s why they are also coming to assist with the ambulance officers’,” Baker told the court.
Baker said she had told police that when she asked Nowland to hand over the knives she had pointed it at her.
The trial, before Justice Ian Harrison, continues.
