SYDNEY (Reuters) - An Australian police officer who was convicted of manslaughter for fatally shooting a 95-year-old care home resident with a Taser gun avoided jail time on Friday.
Senior constable Kristian White, who was fired after being convicted for the death of Clare Nowland in 2023, will instead serve a two-year community correction order - effectively a good behaviour bond - and 425 hours of community service.
Judge Ian Harrison said White's offence fell "at the lower end of objective seriousness" for manslaughter.
Members of Nowland’s family, who filled multiple rows of the public gallery to hear the decision, burst into tears as the sentence was handed down, local media reported.
"It’s a slap on the wrist for someone that’s killed our mother … I need time to process that," Nowland’s oldest son, Michael, said outside the Supreme Court of New South Wales in Sydney.
"Justice and fairness - that’s all we wanted."
White’s lawyer Warwick Anderson said his client and his family were “very relieved” with the outcome.
White, 35, was found guilty of manslaughter in November last year after fatally shocking Nowland with a Taser at the Yallambee Lodge aged care facility in May 2023.
White had been called after Nowland, who displayed signs of dementia, was found by staff holding a steak knife in the early hours of the morning.
Body camera footage showed a few minutes of negotiations between White and Nowland before he said “Nah, b***** it” and pulled the trigger on the great-grandmother. She weighed 47.5 kilograms (95 pounds) at the time and could only walk with the aid of a walking frame.
Nowland fell backwards and struck her head on the floor, dying in hospital a week later.
In his sentencing decision on Friday, Judge Harrison said White made a “terrible mistake”.
But Harrison spared White from jail, saying it would be “disproportionate to the objective seriousness of the offence,” as it was not premeditated and occurred in the course of his work as a serving police officer.
(Reporting by Christine Chen in Sydney; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)
