Courtroom bombshell as nurse breaks her silence about moment cop tasered 95-year-old great-grandmother Clare Nowland

A nurse who was working a night shift at a nursing home when a police officer tasered a resident has said she was “very, very concerned” when the weapon was used on the woman.

Senior Constable Kristian James Samuel White fired his stun gun at great-grandmother Clare Nowland at Yallambee Lodge in the southern NSW town of Cooma in the early hours of May 17, 2023.

The 95-year-old hit her head on the ground when she fell and suffered an inoperable bleeding on the brain. She died a week later in Cooma Hospital.

White, who says he acted lawfully in the course of his duties as a police officer, returned for his trial in the NSW Supreme Court on Wednesday.

Registered nurse Rosaline Baker had been working at the care home for just over two weeks when she called Triple Zero about Ms Nowland.

She said she had previously tried to get Ms Nowland out of three other residents’ rooms at around 3am after the great-grandmother took two steak knives and a jug of prunes from a kitchen.

White and Acting Sergeant Jessica Pank arrived on scene after two paramedics.

Clare Nowland, 95, died a week later after being tasered at Yallambee Lodge care home

They searched for the great-grandmother with Mrs. Baker and found her in a treatment room.

When the 34-year-old senior officer pulled out his Taser, the nurse said she didn’t know what it was and was “a little curious.”

“In my many years of experience as a nurse, almost fifty years, I have never seen anything like this,” she told the court.

She then heard a loud noise and saw Mrs. Nowland being hit.

“I was very concerned when she fell to the ground,” Mrs Baker said.

Video footage played on Tuesday showed White shouting commands at Ms Nowland as she shuffled forward while holding a steak knife and her walker from a treatment room.

“If you keep coming, you’re going to get a bag,” the officer told her before he fired.

Ms Baker described her feelings earlier that evening as Ms Nowland had a knife raised at her in the dark corridors of the nursing home.

“Were you scared or worried when that knife was pointed at you?” asked Crown prosecutor Brett Hatfield SC.

“No, I was concerned that she would go to other places and rooms, that something might happen to other residents,” she said.

Earlier on Wednesday, geriatrician Susan Kurrle told the jury she had diagnosed Ms Nowland with moderate to moderately severe dementia at the time she was tasered.

While still mobile on her four-wheeled walker, the 95-year-old would not have been able to understand what was happening around her or follow instructions, she said.

Professor Kurrle said Ms Nowland’s behavior had escalated in the three months before her death.

“She was constantly resisting changes or anything they asked of her, but she didn’t seem to understand it,” the expert said.

‘In retrospect, it is very clear that the symptoms developed during that time.’

Registered nurse Rosaline Baker told the court she was ‘very, very concerned’ when White used the taser on Ms Nowland

In the photo, bodycam footage shows police handcuffing Ms Nowland after she fell to the ground with a Taser, hitting her head

Ms Nowland exhibited anti-social behavior in early 2023, including taking food from residents, trying to undress in social areas, disturbing residents in their rooms, wandering around in the cold and dark and refusing to accept help from staff, the jury heard.

The court was shown CCTV footage of three incidents at Yallambee Lodge in March and April 2023, when the 95-year-old physically lashed out, ramming a staff member with her walker, climbing an embankment and becoming stuck in a tree.

She was admitted to hospital on April 16 and prescribed the antipsychotic Risperdal to calm her aggressive behavior after hitting and biting staff.

Under questioning from barrister Troy Edwards SC, Prof Kurrle admitted that Ms Nowland’s behavior in the moments before she was tasered could have been a result of staff deciding to reduce the Risperdal dose two days earlier.

The trial continues on Thursday.