Internal emails, obtained by the Australian Associated Press under Freedom of Information laws, have revealed that NSW Police omitted key details in a press release about the tasering of 95 year old Clare Nowland in Cooma.
The lengthier initial draft contained references to the use of a taser, a “resident armed with a knife” at the aged-care facility and the fact that an officer’s employment was under review. The publicised media released contained none of this information.
The victim Clare Nowland died a week later following the incident in May.
The senior police officer who tasered Nowland, Kristian White, is awaiting attendance at Cooma local court, set for 5 July. He has been charged for recklessly causing grievous bodily harm, assault occasioning actual bodily harm and common assault. NSW Police have suspended him from duty with pay.
Critics slammed police in the aftermath of the incident for their slow media response. Police did not publicly comment on the incident again until public pressure and multiple media reports forced a response more than 36 hours after the tasering. Days after the incident, NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb had still not watched the body-cam footage of the altercation.
Appearing on 2GB radio this afternoon at 4.30 PM, NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb defended the action of NSW Police staff.
“It was important investigators informed the Nowland family before they heard it on the public radio. Can you imagine the family hearing about it in this situation?”, Webb said, defending the delayed police response on the day of the incident.
“There is certainly no cover up here”, she said, responding to claims that butchering the draft press release amounts to the obfuscation of reality.
Chris O’Keefe labelled her words “sanitised language” on air.
MLC Sue Higginson, condemned the news, stating “The response to this incident is shocking and indicative of the police problem that we have in NSW.”
“What happened to Mrs Nowland is the tip of the iceberg. This tragic incident is one among many terrible incidents where Police have been called to help but vulnerable people have been harmed or shot dead.”
NSW Police have faced severe criticism in the public arena in recent weeks.
Only days ago a former police officer told the Sydney Morning Herald that NSW Police had scrapped an award-winning training program, which provided instruction on interactions with civilians experiencing mental health crises, in September 2019. This course included instruction on dealing with geriatric and dementia patients.
NRL player Tom Starling also spoke out last week after police began investigating officers who repeatedly coward-punched the Canberra Raiders star at a bar at Avoca Beach. The rugby league player was cleared of any wrongdoing in court earlier this year.
Higginson linked the accountability issue embedded in the culture of NSW Police to the lack of an effective police integrity and accountability body.
“Only last month the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission (LECC) tabled a report in Parliament explaining that it does not have adequate powers to investigate matters of police misconduct”, she said, “so where there is an allegation of police misconduct we have police investigating police. “
