Australian police will not release body camera footage of an officer who tasered a 95-year-old woman with dementia, the police chief said on Saturday, AFP reported.

Claire Nowland remains in hospital in a critical condition three days after being tased in an incident that outraged Australians and made international headlines.

Police were called to a nursing home in south-east New South Wales on Wednesday to restrain a woman “armed with a knife”, police said in a statement.

“He walked towards us with small steps”

Police say they urged Ms Knowland to drop the knife, but she “came towards them” using a walker, prompting one of the officers to shoot her with a taser.

Asked at a news conference about political calls to release footage of the operation, NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb said: “I don’t understand why they want to see it.”

Citing “legal requirements” for the surveillance devices, Webb said he had no intention of “releasing them unless there is a completed process (of procedure) to allow them to be released.”

According to her, the investigation into the use of the stun gun “will take some time.”

Australian Senator David Shoebridge has called on police to release footage from body-worn surveillance cameras.

“The public has a right to know what the police have done and that cannot be hidden in a private investigation where the police are investigating the police,” he said.

Webb promised that the investigation, which will be led by the state police homicide unit and overseen by the Commission on Law Enforcement Conduct, will follow “due process.”

The medical prognosis for Knowland, who has 24 grandchildren and 31 great-grandchildren, is uncertain, Webb said after visiting the hospital and speaking with the victim’s family.