A former police officer who fatally Tasered a 95-year-old Australian woman after she refused his orders to drop a knife has been spared jail, with the victim’s family decrying the sentence as a “slap on the wrist.” Kristian White was found guilty of manslaughter after shocking Clare Nowland with the Taser while on police duty in the early hours of May 17, 2023, in a case that sparked public outcry. Last November, a jury rejected his claim that Nowland posed a threat and found the former senior constable guilty of breaching his duty of care by deploying his weapon against the elderly woman, who later died of her injuries. Sentencing White on Friday, New South Wales Supreme Court Justice Ian Harrison said the former officer’s actions were “a terrible mistake,” but that his crime fell at the lower end of objective seriousness. Police were called to Nowland’s nursing home in…
