NSW government refuses to back calls for release of Taser investigation

The internal police probe into the Tasering of a 95-year-old woman at an aged care home in the state’s south will join a list of more than 90 investigations into the use of force by officers yet to be completed, some almost six years after being launched.

The NSW government is refusing to commit to releasing the investigation, launched by police after grandmother Clare Nowland was left in a critical condition when she was hit by a Taser in the early hours of Wednesday.

Father Mark Croker, from St Patrick’s Catholic Church in Cooma, visited Nowland at hospital on Sunday and held a bedside mass for her and her family, as the much-loved community member continues fighting for life after suffering a head injury during the incident.

Key details of how the incident occurred remain unclear, and police have so-far refused to release “confronting” bodycam footage of the event. NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb was forced to defend her decision not to front the media for three days after the incident.

The use of the Taser on Nowland is probably a breach of police procedures on the use of the potentially-lethal weapon, which state they should not be used on an elderly or disabled subject, or a subject of particularly small body mass, unless exceptional circumstances exist.

But despite justice advocates long calling for an end to the use of internal police Critical Incident Investigations – launched whenever a NSW police operation results in death or serious injury – the state Labor government has not committed to calls for increased transparency.

On Sunday NSW Treasurer Daniel Mookhey refused to back calls for the probe to be released to the public once complete, saying the investigation was being overseen by the NSW Police watchdog, the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission.

Mookhey said it was a matter for the police to decide whether to release the results of the probe, while noting the LECC “has got all the power it needs” to investigate the matter.

“I can’t comment on what police procedure is, but I would just point out it’s an investigation that may well lead to action ... something we need to allow the police to do in partnership with the LECC as well,” he said.

But amid a public outcry over the incident, data published by the LECC shows its oversight of critical incident investigations can be an intensely slow process, with some outstanding probes dating back as far as 2017.

Of the 195 critical incident investigations overseen by the LECC since 2017 it has been “satisfied” 81 were completed adequately, while another 23 were “ceased” because injuries were less serious than first thought.

Another 90 are yet to be completed, according to the LECC, with an incident in Bathurst in August 2017 among them. Another five investigations from 2018 remain outstanding, while there are seven from 2019. The LECC concedes the investigations “take a long time to be finalised” because police wait for associated criminal and coronial proceedings to be finalised.

“This can take a number of years,” the watchdog says.

Under the watchdog’s powers it can either find an “investigation was fully and properly conducted” or “detail concerns if it considers any aspect of the investigation was inappropriate”. The watchdog’s own data reveals it has only raised public concerns about one of the investigations in the past six years.

Nowland, a dementia patient who weighs 43 kilograms, was carrying a serrated steak knife she had obtained from the kitchen of Yallambee Lodge aged care home in Cooma. She had left her bed and been walking around the home for some time before the incident.

Last week NSW Police Assistant Commissioner Peter Cotter said she was moving towards officers “at a slow pace” and using a walking frame.

“But she had a knife,” he said. “I can’t take it any further as to what was going through anyone’s mind as per the use of a Taser.”

The NSW Greens MP Sue Higginson has called for the government to order a “truly independent” investigation into the incident, pointing out the LECC has often cited budget pressures as a reason for it only conducting investigations into about 2 per cent of the matters it receives complaints over.

“I call on the new police minister to launch a truly independent inquiry into police misconduct that assesses the root and systemic causes of NSW Police assaulting members of the public and provides recommendations that fundamentally change how police are allowed to act and investigate themselves,” she said.

“In the immediate term the NSW Labor government, and Treasurer Daniel Mookhey, needs to provide the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission with the necessary funding to fully investigate all reports of police misconduct. It is entrenching the attitudes and systemic issues within the NSW Police that allows a 95-year-old woman to be assaulted within a care facility.”

In the tight-knit southern NSW community of Cooma on Sunday, Fr Croker urged parishioners at the regular Catholic mass to keep Nowland and her family in their prayers.

“At the beginning of mass I did speak about Clare and her family, that we would remember them specially in mass this morning,” he said.

“A good contingent of the people would’ve known her. She was very active in the church – she did a lot of work going to the nursing home. She would go and feed those that needed help at different times during the week.”

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