A police officer who fatally shocked a 95-year-old woman with a Taser in an Australian nursing home has been found guilty of manslaughter after the jury found that the great-grandmother, who was holding a knife, did not pose an “imminent” threat.

Senior Constable Kristian White was one of two police officers called in May last year to Yallambee Lodge, a nursing home in regional New South Wales, when staff asked for help with a resident who was holding two knives as she pushed a mobility walker around the facility.

Clare Nowland – who had dementia – had refused her carers’ requests to return to her room and threw a knife at a staff member that fell on the floor before they dialed emergency services, according to court documents.

The court heard she had been cornered in an office by police and paramedics and had refused to put down a steak knife when White deployed his Taser.

The jury deliberated for days before returning a verdict of guilty to one charge of manslaughter against White for breaching his duty of care to Nowland and engaging in an unlawful and dangerous act.

White had told the court he believed that a “violent confrontation was imminent” – the condition for firing a Taser under standard operating procedures in New South Wales. The rules state that a Taser may only be used against elderly people in “exceptional circumstances.”

The prosecution had argued that White’s use of the Taser was “utterly unnecessary” and an excessive use of force against a frail, elderly woman. After she was shocked with the device, Nowland fell backwards, hitting her head. She died a week later in hospital.

Nowland’s family released a statement after the guilty verdict, thanking the judge, jury and prosecutors, and saying it would take “some time to come to terms with the jury’s confirmation that Clare’s death at the hands of a serving NSW police officer was a criminal and unjustified act.”

How the incident unfolded

Closed-circuit video played to the jury on Monday showed how the incident unfolded in the administrative building of the home around 5 a.m. on May 17, 2023.

In the witness box, White was asked to explain what was going through his mind as he and his partner approached Nowland, who was found by carers sitting in a small office. She was wearing pajamas and had a walking frame nearby for support.

Asked for his first impressions of Nowland, White agreed that she was elderly, but took issue with the suggestion she may have been frail.

“Bit of a subjective question,” White said. When asked again, he said, “not that frail, no.”

While White agreed that Nowland was small in stature, when asked if she was weak, he said he “wouldn’t be able to give an answer.”

On the video, White can be heard repeatedly asking Nowland to put the knife on the table. After she refused and stood up, with one hand on the walker, White pulled out his Taser.

“You see this?” White asked her. “This is a Taser. Drop it now,” he said, referring to the knife. Then after a few more appeals, he warned her “you’re gonna get tased.”

After more warnings, White can be heard saying, “Nah, bugger it” and deployed the Taser.

The court heard White had the Taser pointed at Nowland, its light shining in her eyes, for one minute before he used it.

Asked what he meant by “Nah, bugger it,” and if it was a sign he was “fed up” and had abandoned attempts to resolve the issue, he disagreed.

“I was going to be firing a Taser at a 95-year-old. I felt it was my only option at the time to ensure a safe resolution of the incident,” he said.

“I completely understand it was going to cause her some sort of, you know, injury and pain, but I felt that the risk had elevated to the point that, you know, it required a resolution, and it’s not our job to shy away from these types of incidents,” White said.

“I was not going to essentially gamble on the risk of having her out in the corridor,” he added.

In summing up, Crown Prosecutor Brett Hatfield pointed to contradictions in White’s testimony as he tried to justify his actions in deploying the Taser.

“Answers were malleable and changing, even within a few questions,” he said, while also describing some of White’s responses as “evasive and unpersuasive.”

“This was not a mere breach of the standard of care,” said Hatfield. “This was such an utterly unnecessary and obviously excessive use of force on Mrs. Nowland that it warrants punishment for manslaughter,” he said.

White was suspended from the NSW Police Service after the incident.

He will be sentenced at a later date.

North Korea is expanding a weapons plant that manufactures missiles used by Russia against Ukraine, according to new research from a US-based think tank.

The facility produces both KN-23 missiles (Hwasong-11A) and KN-24 missiles (Hwasong-11B), according to researchers at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies.

Located in the country’s second-largest city, Hamhung, the factory has been visited several times by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, with North Korean state media previously touting its mass-production of tactical missiles.

Ukraine has been hit by a recent surge in Russian ballistic missile attacks, about a third of which used North Korean weapons, according to Ukrainian military officials.

Moscow and Pyongyang have also deepened their military ties to a level unseen since the Cold War, including agreeing to a mutual defense pact earlier this year and sending North Korean troops to help fight against Ukraine according to Western and South Korean officials.

Now, new satellite images indicate North Korea is expanding the Hamhung facility and building what appears to be a second building for the final assembly of missiles, as well as additional housing for workers.

Lair said researchers have seen a lot of expansion at the facility, which is called the ‘February 11 plant’ by North Korean authorities, in the last few years alone. The size of the plant started to increase in 2020, and it has since undergone routine improvements like repairing old buildings and replacing roofs, he said.

But the new building, likely intended for missile assembly, indicates “that they’re not just improving an element of the production line, but rather, they’re trying to expand it.”

“Just outside the security perimeter of the factory, we see what appear to be new apartment buildings going up,” he said. “We can see the foundations in satellite imagery.”

The new missile assembly building is roughly 60% to 70% as large as the original building, Lair estimates.

State media footage from KCNA shows Kim Jong Un touring the plant in August 2023, showing off tail kits being added to Hwasong-11 class missiles, nozzles being fitted and nose cones capping off the short-range ballistic missiles, according to researchers. But that footage has since been removed from state media websites.

The factory is part of the Ryongsong Machine Complex, which also manufactures goods like multiple rocket launcher shells for the North Korean military, Lair said.

Attacks on Ukraine with KN-23 missiles

Russia has fired about 60 North Korean KN-23 missiles (Hwasong-11A) at Ukraine this year.

Crucial components used in the missiles are produced by nine Western manufacturers, including companies based in the United States, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, according to a recent report by Ukraine’s Independent Anti-Corruption Commission (NAKO), a civil society organization.

Moscow and Pyongyang have both previously denied that North Korea has exported weapons to Russia, despite significant evidence of such transfers. Meanwhile, observers have raised concerns that Moscow may be violating international sanctions to aid Pyongyang’s development of its military satellite program.

In June, the two autocratic nations signed a new landmark defense pact, pledging to North use all available means to provide immediate military assistance in the event the other is attacked.

Western officials have also warned that thousands of North Korean troops have joined Moscow’s forces in its attempt to seize back the Kursk region that was taken by Kyiv’s military in a surprise offensive earlier this year.

Eight staff members of a backpacker hostel in Laos have been detained by local authorities as they investigate the deaths of six foreign tourists from suspected methanol poisoning, according to state-affiliated media in the Southeast Asian country.

The deaths of two Australian teenagers, a British woman, an American man and two Danish women – and reports of others taken ill – prompted warnings last week from several Western nations about the potentially fatal consequences of drinking tainted alcohol in Laos.

The employees of the Nana Backpacker Hostel in the northern town of Vang Vieng, all Vietnamese nationals aged between 23 and 44, were arrested Monday by local police, state-affiliated newspaper the Laotian Times reported.

Part of the investigation has focused on reports the tourists were offered free shots of alcohol at the hostel, where at least five of those who died had stayed.

The hostel manager and owner, who are also Vietnamese, were previously detained for questioning by police, according to the Associated Press. The manager had earlier said the two Australian women joined more than 100 guests for free shots at the hostel before leaving for a night out, but he denied that other guests had reported any issue, AP reported.

The victims’ respective governments have confirmed their nationalities and deaths, but many details of the suspected mass poisoning remain unclear, frustrating families and fellow travelers trying to piece together what happened in Vang Vieng.

A statement from the official Lao News Agency (KPL) Friday reported that “the consumption of tainted alcoholic beverages” was the suspected cause of the deaths. But Laos authorities have not given any indication of where and how tainted alcohol might have got into the supply chain.

Travelers conduct own investigation

Meanwhile, the victims’ families are grappling with the abrupt loss of their loved ones.

The bodies of 19-year-old best friends Holly Bowles and Bianca Jones were returned to Australia on Tuesday night. Speaking to reporters at Melbourne airport, their fathers thanked supporters and praised efforts from the Australian government, according to Nine News.

But Mark Jones said the families were still no closer to getting answers about how their daughters had died, Nine News reported.

“We want to grieve. We miss our daughters desperately,” Jones said, after news broke of the arrests in Vang Vieng. “I was happy to hear that there’s been some movement over in Laos … I would continue to urge the Laos government to continue to pursue whomever.”

Methanol is an alcohol chemical commonly used in industrial solvents, cleaning products and fuel, though it can be added to alcoholic drinks either inadvertently through traditional brewing methods or deliberately – usually in the pursuit of profit.

In recent decades, Vang Vieng had earned a notorious reputation as a hedonistic party center where travelers could easily access cheap alcohol and illicit drugs.

But in 2012, the government ordered a crackdown following a string of fatal accidents linked to poor safety standards and a culture of excess along the river that flows through the town, reinventing Vang Vieng as more of an eco-paradise and adventure travel hub.