Police speak out after Myer Christmas window event canning, water gun sparks CBD panic: Australian news live

A senior police officer has told the court she was “comfortable” with her subordinate’s decision to use the Taser on a 95-year-old woman in a care home.

Clare Nowland died from injuries sustained when Senior Constable Kristian White discharged his Taser into her chest at Yallambee Lodge retirement home in Cooma on May 17.

The police officer is on trial in the NSW Supreme Court after pleading not guilty to manslaughter over the great-grandmother’s death.

The Crown alleges he breached his duty of care to Ms Nowland and caused her unlawful death either through criminal negligence or a dangerous act.

Kristian White is on trial over allegations he killed Clare Nowland when he hit her with a Taser. Photo: NewsWire

The 34-year-old does not deny discharging the weapon that caused Ms Nowland’s death, but her lawyers say it was a reaction proportionate to the risk she posed by holding a knife.

On Thursday, the jury heard Constable White’s supervising officer, then acting sergeant, Jessica Pank, say in a statement that she believed they had “done the best they could in the situation”.

She was asked whether, as a supervisor and given the training she had received, she thought it was appropriate for Officer White to discharge his Taser at Ms. Nowland.

“I was comfortable with the situation,” Constable Pank said in the statement, but added that she was not happy about it.

She told the court she was “afraid for her physical safety” when she tried to take the knife out of Ms Nowland’s hands because “it looked very sharp and her eyes were dark”.