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“Mr. White made by what any measure was a terrible mistake,”
Justice Ian Harrison said in the New South Wales state Supreme
Court.
Prosecutors had called for a prison term in the killing of Clare
Nowland, a great-grandmother who suffered dementia, but the
judge said such a punishment was disproportionate.
“It is ... at the lower end of seriousness of crimes amounting
to wrongful death,” Harrison said.
A jury convicted White last year, and he was fired from the New
South Wales police in December. He had faced a potential maximum
sentence of 25 years in prison for manslaughter.
Staff called police to a nursing home in Cooma on May 17, 2023,
because Nowland was wandering through the building with a walker
and holding a steak knife.
White fired his Taser at her within minutes of confronting her.
She fell back and hit her head on the floor. She died in a
hospital a week later from an inoperable brain bleed.
The judge said: “A frail and confused 95-year-old woman in fact
posed nothing that could reasonably be described as a threat of
any substance.”
Outside court, the victim’s son Michael Nowland expressed his
family’s disappointment that White had not been sent to prison.
“It was very disappointing for the family, because — well, a
slap on the wrist for someone that’s killed our mother,” the son
said. “It’s very, very hard to process that.”
In a letter to Nowland’s family presented to the court, White
gave his “sincere apologies for my actions.”
”I deeply regret my actions and the severe consequences it has
caused to not only Mrs. Nowland but also to your family and the
greater community,” White wrote.
“I take full responsibility for my actions. I felt and still
feel horrible about what happened,” he added.
White did not speak to the media as he walked from the Sydney
court Friday.
His lawyer Warwick Anderson told reporters outside court the
couple was relieved that White had avoided jail.
“They’re going to take their time and move on with their lives,”
Anderson said.
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