A 95-year-old grandmother is in a critical condition after being tasered by police in Australia.

Officers were called to a care home after staff discovered Clare Nowland outside her room holding a steak knife.

They talked to her for several minutes – but when she failed to drop the knife and began approaching the officers, one of them fired a taser, knocking her to the ground.

She was using a walking frame at the time and suffers from dementia.

Assistant Commissioner Peter Cotter said: “At the time she was tasered she was approaching police but it is fair to say at a slow pace.”

Ms Nowland has since been taken to hospital and is said to be fading in and out of consciousness, with her family by her bedside.

It happened at the Yallambee care home in Cooma, which is about 186 miles (300km) southwest of Sydney.

The officer who fired the taser has been taken off duty, and the homicide squad is now involved.

Although body cameras recorded the incident, New South Wales Police said it isn’t the public interest to release the footage because an investigation is ongoing.