Source : Perth Now news
It was an attack that stunned the world and raised uncomfortable questions for Australia.
Sydney was brought to a standstill as news of the horror knife attack at one of the city’s most popular shopping centres spread through the city.
Six people were killed and 10 others were injured in the attack at Westfield Bondi Junction on April 13, 2024.
Dawn Singleton, Yixuan Cheng, Faraz Ahmed Tahir, Ashlee Good, Jade Young and Pikria Darchia died in the incident.
Killer Joel Cauchi, 40, had gone on a rampage through the palatial shopping centre with a WWII knife purchased at a camping store before being gunned down by NSW Police Inspector Amy Scott.
A five-week coronial inquest into the deadly stabbing began on Monday, with the first week revealing never-before-heard details about the incident.
NewsWire has broken down the insights that have come to light during the first week of the inquest.
Acts of bravery
CCTV footage released during the first week of the coronial inquest into the tragedy captured the moments before Inspector Scott – credited with saving lives – shot Cauchi dead.
Acts of unbelievable courage made as the attack unfolded were put before the court, including how “Bollard Man” Damien Guerot tore off a metal chair chained to a table to use as a potential weapon against Cauchi, just minutes after he and his friend, Silas Despreaux, threw bollards at the killer.
Mr Despreaux’s statement to police, released on the fourth day of the inquest, described the chilling moment he was faced with Cauchi.
“The attacker looked at me, and it didn’t look like he was very happy with what I’d just done. I thought I was going to be his target,” Mr Despreaux’s statement read.
Defenceless, he ran outside the centre and searched for another weapon before going back inside to see Mr Guerot had taken his place at the top of the escalator.
“I took his spot and started to thrust my bollard towards (Cauchi) which was causing him to move back down a couple of steps. I was doing this for about a minute. He tried to step forward toward me and this cause me to throw my bollard at him. I think it hit him in his left arm and left side of his body,” Mr Guerot’s statement to police read.
They ran outside, only to rush back in moments later with Inspc. Scott.
The hero police officer told the court Mr Despreaux or Mr Guerot had “tapped me on the back and said ‘You’re on your own, we’re coming with you’” as they headed up an escalator to find Cauchi.
Somewhere along the way, Mr Despreaux armed himself with a shopping cart, while Mr Guerot tore off a chair chained to a table.
“Damien picked up a chair from the food court – it was chained to the table, but I saw Damien just rip it and he broke the chain,” Mr Despreaux’s statement read.
CCTV footage played in court captured an employee’s heart-stopping near miss with Cauchi before Inspector Scott, flanked by Mr Guerot and Mr Despreaux, rushes into the frame.
Cauchi ran at Inspc. Scott before the video abruptly stops.
The court was told Inspc. Scott fired three bullets, two of which hit Cauchi, and a third which struck a large pot plant a woman had been seeking refuge behind just moments before, only fleeing the area upon direction from the police officer.
Fresh footage released during a coronial inquest has captured the moment the “bollard men” ran with Inspector Amy Scott, armed with a chair and trolley, towards killer Joel Cauchi before he ran at the officer.
Cauchi’s ‘distressing’ web searches
Cauchi made a note on his phone to “Call knife sharpener and confirm it doesn’t need sharpening for mall use” and to “Check out malls and also where to run” in the months before the attack.
Searches on his phone from late 2022 “suggested a preoccupation with death and murder”, including bookmarked pages on serial killers, searches of mass stabbing incidents in Australia in the days before the attack.
The morning of April 13, Cauchi made Reddit searches about related to the 1999 Columbine shooting that killed more than 10 people in the United States.
Other earlier searches from October 2023 onwards included “What can neuroscience tell us about the mind of a serial killer”, “Last mass stabbing Australia”, “Five best assault rifles in the world”,“Self-inflicted deaths in Australian prisons”, “12 common traits of serial killers”, “21 famous serial killers”, and “What things do people regret while dying?”
The court was told the behaviour was different to how Cauchi “appeared to think when he was medicated”, and that there was “no direct evidence” to suggest any motive despite insight into his “inner turmoil and dark thoughts leading up to this incident”.
The court was also told a GP, in a single care episode, didn’t identify any evidence of acute psychosis in November 2023, however police have since identified Cauchi was “searching this very dark material” at the exact same time.
‘Does not know he’s sick’: Mum’s plea to cops
Cauchi was diagnosed with schizophrenia when he was 17, and was medicated for more than a decade to treat the condition until he ceased taking all psychotropic medication in June 2019.
His mother had told Queensland Police in early 2023 her son “really needs to see a doctor but he does not know he’s sick” after Cauchi called the police, accusing his father of stealing his knives.
Cauchi told police he could become broke and potentially be “at risk of being killed” as a result of his father confiscating the knives, which had been done over concerns about his son having access to them.
While the officers “formed the view that Mr Cauchi was unwell” following the interaction, they didn’t think it was necessary to take immediate steps to have Cauchi assessed or arrested.
One of the attending officers did send an email to the Darling Downs District Domestic and Family Violence and Vulnerable Persons Unit requesting a follow-up on Cauchi’s mental health, however “it appears that the email was missed”.
NSW Police Chief Inspector Andrew Paul Marks later agreed evidence suggested Cauchi’s mum was “foreshadowing a deterioration as early as late 2019 when he’d come off his medication”.
“Yes, she’d seen some warning signs and she reported those,” Mr Marks told Ms Dwyer.
On the day of the attack, Cauchi was “floridly psychotic”, according to “clear and unanimous” expert psychiatric evidence.
Ms Dwyer said Cauchi was “homeless in Sydney, completely detached from the mental health system” and “far from the watchful eye of his parents” who’d previously been able to keep him linked with health services.
The court was told Cauchi’s parents were “not aware of just how dark his thoughts had become towards the end of what was obviously a downward spiral”.
The inquest is set to probe whether the lack of follow up after his interactions with Queensland Police was “a missed opportunity for intervention”.
Separately, whether Cauchi’s mental health treatment was “adequate and appropriate” will also be examined, with Cauchi “effectively lost to follow-up” from early 2020.
“Mr Cauchi’s experience demonstrates how quickly someone can fall out of the mental health system and, once outside it, the barriers to reintegrating them,” Ms Dwyer told the court.
She also noted the inquest didn’t seek to stigmatise those living with mental illness.
“We know that most people with schizophrenia … will never commit an act of violence, let alone a serious act of violence,” Ms Dwyer said.
“But it is an unavoidable fact that a small number of homicides are committed by people with psychotic illnesses.”
Cauchi ‘fit and proper person’ for gun license
A psychiatrist deemed Cauchi “a fit and proper person to be issued with a weapons licence”, with the inquest told it was “very fortunate” the killer didn’t follow through with a gun license given his web history and the “very significant deterioration of his mental health”.
The court was told Cauchi had sought a psychiatric review to obtain a gun license so he could practice target shooting at a gun range, telling a Brisbane psychiatrist during a single appointment in January 2021 that he didn’t intend to buy a gun.
Cauchi was “largely open” about his psychiatric history in the appointment, and said he was asymptomatic after ceasing all psychotropic medication.
The psychiatrist didn’t think Cauchi displayed “any thought disorder or psychotic symptoms in that one interaction”, and didn’t think a follow-up appointment or ongoing treatment was necessary because he wasn’t medicated.
The psychiatrist later recommended Cauchi have “six monthly reviews to monitor for mental state” after receiving Cauchi’s medical history from his former Toowoomba psychiatrist, despite Cauchi appearing to be asymptomatic at the time.
The Brisbane psychiatrist then provided two reports in support of Cauchi’s gun license application — the second of which he deemed Cauchi “a fit and proper person to be issued with a weapons licence”, and Cauchi was issued a statement of eligibility.
“A statement of eligibility supports a condition required to accept a person for membership to an approved pistol club under the Weapons Act. A statement of eligibility is not a weapons licence and nor does it allow for the purchase of a weapon. A statement of eligibility is not a prerequisite for holding a weapons licence,” Ms Dwyer told the court.
However, Cauchi’s interest in having access to a gun with untreated schizophrenia “raises questions regarding the scrutiny of any applicant for any form of firearms permit where the applicant has a history of involuntary psychiatric hospital care, particularly for the sort of treatment resistant schizophrenia that Mr Cauchi was suffering”, Ms Dwyer said.
“The available evidence suggests that Mr Cauchi did not follow through with a gun licence and that is very, very fortunate, because the evidence on Mr Cauchi’s iPhone and his internet searching suggests a very significant deterioration of his mental health steadily from the time that he was unmedicated, and a significant deterioration around this time.”
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