Officer who Tasered Clare Nowland felt action was ‘justified’, court told

The jury has viewed body-worn police footage which captured White and others repeatedly asking Nowland to drop the knife, before White said, “Stop … nah, bugger it”, discharged his weapon, followed by “Got her”.

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White said he was “weighing up the danger that was increasing at the time”, as communication and use of the Taser’s warning arc had failed, and the “incident had been going on for several hours”.

“Obviously, it was not going to be resolved, to me, without a use of force,” he said.

White’s barrister, Troy Edwards, SC, asked: “Why did you discharge your Taser?”

“I believe that she was posing a risk to not only myself but also Sergeant Pank,” he replied.

“She was walking out, she’s raised a knife at us, her intent was quite clear to us that she was going to use the knife on us.”

White said he did not think a serious injury would result from the use of the Taser.

Edwards asked: “Did you consider that it might result in her dying?”

“No,” White replied.

Asked how he felt “about the fact that it did”, White said: “I’m upset and devastated by it. I never intended for her to be injured by it at all.”

“My hope was that it would go as I’ve seen it happen before … she’d be incapacitated.”

White gave evidence that he and Pank had written up reports upon their arrival back at the police station.

“Sergeant Pank mentioned something about the Tasering or not Tasering of elderly people,” he said.

White said they looked up the NSW Police Standard Operating Procedures, which included certain criteria and “exceptional circumstances”.

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“We sat there and discussed ‘Well, yes, she was elderly’. We accepted that,” he said.

“My thoughts … well, she was armed with a knife and walking towards us with an intent, it appeared that she was going to strike out [at] us with the knife.

“I thought that would have met the test. I think I said to Sergeant Pank, ‘To me, it looks justified.’”

White said he had not been aware of the exceptional circumstances test, but did factor that Nowland was elderly.

“[I] was going to give her every opportunity I thought I could [to] have her comply with my directions,” he said.

The court heard White graduated from the police academy in 2011 and had worked at Cooma police station since December 2017.

Asked by Edwards what he remembered about his training regarding the use of force on offenders armed with a knife, White said: “Any offender armed with a knife is a risk, and a high risk or a danger.”

“I was taught that you don’t underestimate anyone carrying a knife, at all,” he said.