Ex-cop avoids jail time for fatal Tasering of 95-year-old

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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