The jury asked to consider one thing about the officer who tasered grandmother Clare Nowland

A police officer’s good character means he would only have tasered a 95-year-old woman if it was legal and would not have lied about it, a jury was told.

Dramatic footage of the incident, taken from nursing home CCTV cameras and police-worn cameras, has been shown during a manslaughter trial in the Supreme Court of NSW before Senior Constable Kristian White.

In the clips, the 34-year-old officer was heard saying “no, crap” before shooting 95-year-old Clare Nowland in the torso.

Defense lawyer Troy Edwards SC asked the jury on Tuesday to consider that his client was of good character and had not committed any previous criminal offenses when assessing the verdict.

“Is he the type of person… who would taser someone without a legal reason to do so?” he asked.

“Is he the type of person who will listen to all this evidence, get on the witness stand, swear an oath to God and look you in the eye as a jury and tell you a whole bunch of lies?”

White fired his stun gun at Ms Nowland in a treatment room at the Yallambee Lodge retirement home in the southern NSW town of Cooma in the early hours of May 17, 2023.

A jury has been asked to consider Kristian White’s good character when considering her verdict

A jury has been shown dramatic images of Clare Nowland being tasered

The great-grandmother, who had symptoms of dementia and was holding a steak knife, fell backwards and hit her head before dying in hospital a week later.

The threat she posed caused fear among those alive at the time, Mr Edwards told the jury.

“It feels very different when you’re there, it feels very different when Mrs. Nowland is the one looking at you,” he said.

Before he was shot, the 95-year-old had been asked 20 times to stop or sit down and 21 times to drop or put down the knife, Edwards said.

White and Acting Sergeant Jessica Pank had tried to physically disarm Ms Nowland and kick the wheels of her walker to keep her in the room, he argued.

“You might have thought when she walked out the door that she had run out of options,” he told the jury.

Crown prosecutor Brett Hatfield SC said White’s true motives were revealed by the two words he said before pulling the trigger.

“What the suspect said before firing the Taser was completely inconsistent with the fact that it was intended to prevent an imminent violent confrontation,” he said.

The great-grandmother on the night she was tasered (photo)

“No, hell.” You may understand that this meant he was fed up, impatient, and unwilling to wait any longer.”

No reasonable person would have thought violence was imminent because Ms Nowland’s speed meant it took her a minute to shuffle forward a meter before she was tasered, Mr Hatfield said.

She was also two or three meters away from White, Sergeant Pank, two paramedics and a nurse.

“Who could she have hurt at that moment? No one,” Mr. Hatfield said.

The prosecutor focused on White’s credibility, saying he declined to answer direct questions about whether Ms. Nowland looked weak or moved slowly.

The officer also made a “complete about-face” when asked about the precise time he prepared to fire the weapon and whether he thought the elderly resident would act with superhuman strength, the jury heard.

“His answers were malleable and changed even within a few questions,” Mr. Hatfield said.

Claims by White’s partner Sergeant Pank and paramedic Anna Hofner that Ms Nowland posed a threat did not match video footage showing the elderly woman standing still in the treatment room when she was tasered, he argued.

White’s police report claiming the 95-year-old brandished the knife and held a boning knife did not match video or documentary evidence, the jury heard.

The officer has been charged with manslaughter by criminal negligence and committing an unlawful and dangerous act.

Judge Ian Harrison will give closing remarks to jurors on Wednesday before they consider their verdict.