By Miklos Bolza in Sydney

A police officer’s good character means he would only have tasered a 95-year-old woman if it was lawful and would not have lied about it, a jury been told.

Dramatic footage of the incident taken from a nursing home’s CCTV and police bodyworn cameras has been shown at a NSW Supreme Court manslaughter trial for Senior Constable Kristian White.

In the clips, the 34-year-old officer was heard saying “nah, bugger it” before shooting 95-year-old Clare Nowland in the torso.

Defence barrister Troy Edwards SC asked the jury on Tuesday to consider that his client had a good character with no prior criminal offences when considering its verdict.

“Is he the type of person … that would taser somebody without a lawful reason to do so?” he asked.

“Is he the type of person to listen to all this evidence, to get in the witness box, to swear an oath to God and to look you the jury in the eye and to tell you a whole bunch of lies?”

White discharged his stun gun at Mrs Nowland in a treatment room at Yallambee Lodge aged-care home in the southern NSW town of Cooma during the early hours of May 17, 2023.

The great-grandmother, who had symptoms of dementia and was holding a steak knife, fell backwards and hit her head before dying a week later in hospital.

The threat she posed caused fear for those who lived that moment, Mr Edwards told the jury.

“It feels pretty different when you’re there, it feels pretty different when Mrs Nowland is the one who locks eyes with you,” he said.

Before being shot, the 95-year-old had been asked 20 times to stop or be seated and 21 times to drop or put down the knife, Mr Edwards said.

White and Acting Sergeant Jessica Pank had tried to physically disarm Mrs Nowland and to kick the wheels of her walker to keep her contained in the room, he argued.

“You might think as she was going out that door, the options had run out,” he told the jury.

Crown prosecutor Brett Hatfield SC said White’s true motives were revealed by the two words he uttered before pulling the trigger.

“What the accused said before he fired the Taser was completely inconsistent with it being to prevent an imminent violent confrontation,” he said.

“‘Nah, bugger it’. You might understand that to mean he was fed up, impatient, not prepared to wait any longer.”

No reasonable person would have thought violence was imminent because Mrs Nowland’s speed meant it took her a minute to shuffle forward a metre before she was tasered, Mr Hatfield said.

She was also two or three metres away from White, Sgt Pank, two paramedics and a registered nurse.

“Who could she have injured at that moment? No one,” Mr Hatfield said.

The prosecutor targeted White’s credibility, saying he refused to answer straightforward questions about whether Mrs Nowland looked frail or moved slowly.

The officer also made a “complete about-face” when asked about the precise point in time he was prepared to fire the weapon and whether he thought the aged-care resident was going to act with superhuman strength, the jury heard.

“His answers were malleable and changing even within a few questions,” Mr Hatfield said.

Claims by White’s partner, Sgt Pank, and paramedic Anna Hofner that Mrs Nowland posed a threat did not match video footage showing the elderly woman stationary inside the treatment room when she was tasered, he argued.

White’s police report that claimed the 95-year-old was waving the blade around and was holding a boning knife did not match video or documentary evidence, the jury heard.

The officer has been accused of manslaughter through criminal negligence and by committing an unlawful and dangerous act.

Justice Ian Harrison will give closing remarks to jurors on Wednesday before they consider their verdict.