A tragic timeline of Claire Knowland’s final moments before Christian White fatally tasered her at a nursing home

The sequence of events that led to a police officer fatally tasing a 95-year-old woman has been revealed in court.

Claire Nowland died from injuries sustained on May 17 when Senior Constable Christian White fired his taser into her chest at Yallambi Lodge nursing home in Cooma.

A police officer will stand trial in the NSW Supreme Court after pleading not guilty to manslaughter over the death of a great-grandmother.

The Crown Prosecution Service alleges he breached his duty of care to Mrs Nowland and caused her wrongful death by criminal negligence or dangerous act.

The 34-year-old does not deny he used the weapon that caused Mrs Knowland’s death, but his lawyers say it was a proportionate reaction to the risk she posed by wielding the knife.

During the first week of the trial, jurors were told what happened in the final hours before the fatal collision.

3 in the morning

About two hours before she was fatally electrocuted at the nursing home, Mrs. Knowland disappeared from her room.

In surveillance footage shown to jurors, the 95-year-old woman, leaning on her four-wheeled walker, shuffles around the nursing home in pink pajamas.

Jurors heard she was seen with two knives as she entered the rooms of four of her flatmates.

In a statement read to the court by Crown prosecutor Brett Hatfield, the 90-year-old said he noticed the knives but Mrs Nowland “didn’t make any threats or raise them at me” before he was led out of the room.

The 84-year-old’s statement said Mrs Knowland entered his room while he was asleep and had a confrontation with nurses during which she refused to leave and brandished knives in the air.

Mrs Knowland claimed the room was hers and refused to leave, the court was told.

Nursing assistant Mamta Rai told the court on Thursday that Mrs Nowland threw one of the steak knives at her but it fell to the floor.

She agreed with Constable White’s barrister Troy Edwards SC that she was scared and it was a “very scary” experience.

The court was told that Mrs Knowland had difficulty following instructions and had become uncharacteristically aggressive in the months before her death, which a geriatrician attributed to undiagnosed dementia.

4 in the morning

The knife-throwing incident prompted nurse Rosalyn Baker to call Triple-0 to help Mrs Knowland, who she described as “very aggressive” and holding two knives.

An ambulance was dispatched and the police were notified due to the involvement of knives.

However, when two paramedics and the police arrived, Mrs Knowland was nowhere to be found.

A long search of the territory of the home for the elderly began, which was recorded on the home’s surveillance cameras.

Nursing home staff, paramedics and police search for 95-year-old Claire Nowland moments before she was fatally tasered by Senior Constable Christian White on May 17, 2023.

Mrs Knowland can be seen standing around the corner as police and nursing home staff gather in the waiting room before the search begins.

After they leave the building, a 95-year-old woman slowly walks into a room where she is fatally shocked with a taser.

Just after 4:30 a.m., before she entered the room and sat down, she met Ms. Baker and picked up the remaining knife.

“I was a bit worried, not knowing if she was really going to attack me or not,” Ms Baker told the court on Wednesday.

“Every time (I asked) her to give me the knife, she pointed it at me.”

5 in the morning

Just after 5 a.m., Mrs. Knowland was found sitting in the nurse’s office with her walker and holding a knife and pen.

Footage shown in court showed Constable White, Acting Sergeant Jessica Punk and two paramedics gathered at the door and peering into the room.

You can hear them urging the great-grandmother to sit down and put the knife down. Instead, she put the pen down, the court was told.

“She didn’t seem to acknowledge anything I said,” paramedic Anna Hoffner told the court.

Mrs. Nowland struggled to her feet with the help of a walker and began to move slowly toward the door, but Mrs. Hoffner backed away because “she was too close for me to be comfortable.”

Paramedics and police speak to Claire Nowland, 95, as she sat in her office moments before she was fatally tasered by Senior Constable Christian White on May 17, 2023.

“I think she was close enough that if she had tried to stab me, I could have been stabbed,” she said Thursday.

Ms Hofner explained that this was what she feared at the time, but she was able to back away and “at no time” did she feel she was in immediate danger.

She agreed with Mr Gatfield that there was “no danger” of Ms Nowland hitting anyone in the audience.

As Constable Punk tried to approach her to grab the knife, the footage shows the great-grandmother stopping her movement and raising the weapon.

“I remember fearing for my physical safety at that point trying to get the knife because it looked very sharp and her eyes were dark,” Constable Punk said.

“As I got closer, this wave of darkness passed over her face, which made me a little afraid to be around her to see it, yes, a wave of fear.”

She agreed that she easily managed to take a step back to avoid danger due to Mrs Knowland’s slow movements and mobility issues.

As the juvenile girl advanced, Constable White repeatedly asked her to put the knife down.

“We’re not playing this game, Claire, put it down,” Constable White can be heard telling the great-grandmother in the tattered dashcam footage of the incident.

“Claire, stop.” do you see it This is a stun gun.

The footage shows Constable White raising and activating the taser warning system, which sent a loud noise and pulsating light towards Mrs Nowland.

“If you keep coming, you’ll get hit,” he told her.

However, Mrs. Nowland kept moving towards the door, holding on to the walker with both hands.

“Stop, just… Hell no,” the police officer said before using a Taser on her chest.

“Took her… grab her.”

A 95-year-old woman weighing less than 48 kg staggered and fell forward, then staggered backward and hit the floor.

The footage shows police rushing forward as she falls, with Constable White keeping a hand on her shoulder.

Consequences

Paramedic Kingsley Newman told the court on Thursday that Mrs Nowland’s injuries were progressing at an “unusual and alarming” rate.

He noted a nearly 5-centimeter hematoma and “some facial drooping on the opposite side of the injury, indicating fairly significant intracerebral hemorrhage.”

In addition, he testified that he saw a burn mark on Mrs. Nowland’s body that mimicked the arc of a taser.

Mrs Knowland was rushed to Cooma Hospital but died of her injuries a week later.

In the incident report, Constable White wrote that he decided to use his taser because “a violent confrontation was imminent” and he wanted to “prevent injury to the police”.

Sergeant Jarrod Dawson said that when the 34-year-old returned to Cooma police station at around 7.15am, he explained that he “needed” to use a taser.

“He said, ‘I looked it up and supposedly we’re not going to prey on the elderly, but in the circumstances I needed it.’ It might be my first critical incident,” Sergeant Dawson recalled Friday.

Senior Constable Punk, who was Acting Sergeant and Chief Constable White that day, said she thought they “did everything they could in this situation”.

She was asked whether, as a supervisor and because of her training, she thought it was appropriate for Constable White to discharge his taser on Ms Knowland.

“I was fine with the situation,” Constable Penk confirmed in a statement read to the court, but added that she was not happy about it.

Constable White’s trial will continue on Monday before Judge Ian Harrison.