Christine Chen
SYDNEY (Reuters) – An Australian police officer was found guilty of a Tansell gun for fatal shooting of a 95-year-old nursing home resident, who avoided jail time on Friday.
Senior Police Officer Kristian White was fired after being convicted of Clare Nowland in 2023 and will instead serve a two-year community correction order – a valid conduct deposit and 425 hours of community service.
Judge Ian Harrison said White’s crimes were “at the lower end of objectively serious” against manslaughter.
Members of the Nowland family filled the rows of public galleries to hear the decision, and they cried as the verdict passed.
“It’s a slap on the wrist for those who killed our mother,” said Nowland’s eldest son Michael outside the New South Wales Supreme Court in Sydney.
“Justice and fairness – that’s what we want.”
White’s attorney Warwick Anderson said his client and family were “very assured” about the outcome.
White, 35, was convicted of manslaughter in November last year after he caused a shocking Nowland at Taser at the Yallambee Lodge Elderly Care Facilities in May 2023.
In the early morning, staff holding steak knife discovered Nowland, and Nowland was summoned.
The body camera footage showed a few minutes of negotiations between White Man and Norland, then he said “No, annoying” and pulled the trigger on his great-grandmother. At that time, she weighed 47.5 kg (95 lbs) and could only walk with the help of a walking rack.
Nowland fell backward and died in the hospital a week later.
Judge Harrison said in Friday’s verdict that White made a “terrible mistake.”
But Harrison gave up White from prison, saying it was “not commensurate with the objective severity of the crime” because it was not planned and happened in his job as a service policeman.
(Reported by Christine Chen in Sydney; Editor of Lincoln Feast.)
