Ex-cop avoids jail time for fatal Tasering of 95-year-old
A police officer who fatally shot a 95-year-old woman with a stun gun will not go to jail but will instead serve his sentence in the community.
Moderated by Tomas Kauer 
A police officer has been spared jail and will serve a two-year sentence in the community for fatally tasering a great-grandmother with dementia.
Former senior constable Kristian James Samuel White will walk out of the NSW Supreme Court today subject to strict conditions after killing 95-year-old Clare Nowland in the southern NSW town of Cooma.
The 35-year-old fired his Taser at the elderly woman after being called to the Yallambee Lodge aged-care home in the early hours of May 17, 2023.
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In handing down his decision, Justice Ian Harrison found that White made a "terrible mistake" but that his crime fell at the lower end of objective seriousness.
At a prior sentencing hearing, prosecutors pushed Harrison to jail White for the crime.
However, the judge instead sided with the ex-officer's lawyers.
They argued he only made an error of judgement and should receive a more lenient sentence for that reason.
White will have to perform 425 hours of community service as part of his two-year community corrections order.
Nowland was holding a knife while using a walking frame and had been ignoring attempts by staff to disarm her before she was shot with the weapon.
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The 35-year-old officer said "nah, bugger it" before firing the Taser's barbs at her chest, causing her to fall and strike her head.
The great-grandmother suffered a bleed on the brain and died in hospital a week later.
White was removed from the police force in December after the guilty verdict, but he has launched legal action for a review of that decision.
He has launched legal action for a review of that decision.
More to come.
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