The jury has viewed body-worn police footage, which captured White and others repeatedly asking Nowland to drop the knife, before White said, “Stop … nah, bugger it” and discharged his weapon, followed by “got her”.

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White said he was “weighing up the danger that was increasing at the time” as communication and use of the Taser’s warning arc had failed, and the “incident had been going on for several hours”.

“Obviously, it was not going to be resolved, to me, without a use of force,” he said.

White’s barrister, Troy Edwards, SC, asked: “Why did you discharge your Taser?”

“I believe that she was posing a risk to not only myself but also Sergeant Pank,” he replied. “She was walking out, she’s raised a knife at us, her intent was quite clear to us that she was going to use the knife on us.”

White said he did not think a serious injury would result from the use of the Taser.

Edwards asked: “Did you consider that it might result in her dying?”

“No,” White replied.

Asked how he felt “about the fact that it did”, White said: “I’m upset and devastated by it. I never intended for her to be injured by it at all.”

“My hope was that it would go as I’ve seen it happen before … she’d be incapacitated.”

White said he and Pank had written up reports upon arrival back at the police station, that Pank “mentioned something about the Tasering or not Tasering of elderly people”, and they looked up the police procedures including criteria and circumstances.

“We sat there and discussed ‘well, yes, she was elderly.’ We accepted that,” he said.

“My thoughts ... well, she was armed with a knife and walking towards us with an intent, it appeared that she was going to strike out [at] us with the knife.

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“I thought that would have met the test. I think I said to Sergeant Pank ‘to me, it looks justified’.”

In her evidence, Pank could not recall looking up the procedures or saying anything to White about the circumstances.

White told the court he did factor in that Nowland was elderly and “wanted to give her every opportunity” to comply with directions.

Asked under cross-examination whether Nowland looked frail, White said Crown prosecutor Brett Hatfield, SC, was asking “the proverbial piece of string question”. He said Nowland was “not the frailest I’ve seen” and “looked quite well for someone at 95 years of age”.

He disagreed with the prosecutor’s suggestions that Nowland was “obviously a frail old lady” and there was a “clear risk if she fell … she’d be seriously injured”.

White said he hoped Nowland would “fall onto her walker … because she was hunched over”.

White, who graduated from the police academy in 2011, said he had previously discharged his Taser twice before the incident, resulting in the “faintest of injuries”. He said he was taught “you don’t underestimate anyone carrying a knife, at all”.

The defence argues White acted within his duty as a police officer. The Crown alleges White was criminally negligent or committed an unlawful and dangerous act.

The trial continues before Justice Ian Harrison.