Joel Cauchi stabbed and killed six people at the Westfield shopping centre in Sydney's eastern suburbs in April before shot dead by a police officer.
A coronial inquest into the Bondi Junction mass stabbing will investigate potential failings in the mental health system and shopping centre security protocols.
The counsel assisting the coroner, Dr Peggy Dwyer SC, today laid out the key issues in a preliminary hearing ahead of an extensive inquest next year.The court heard in the years before he stabbed 16 shoppers with a large hunting knife, Cauchi had been off his "psychotropic medication" previously used to treat his schizophrenia since 2019.
Queensland Police went to his parents' Toowoomba home in January 2023 after Cauchi called them to report that his father had stolen his collection of hunting knives.Police were advised that Cauchi "had long-term schizophrenia, was no longer medicated and that his parents were worried about the deterioration of his mental state and that's why his knives had been confiscated by his father".
In the months before the attack, a member of the public called NSW Police to report a body in a sleeping bag at Maroubra "that wasn't moving". In the days after the attack, a sea of flowers bloomed on the pavement outside the shopping centre as people came to pay their respects.The court heart on the morning of April 13, Cauchi was "sleeping rough" around the Maroubra area and made his way from there to a storage unit he was renting in Waterloo about 6:30am.
The court heard Mr Cauchi then lined up at a bakery on level 4 behind Dawn Singleton just after 3:30pm. Inspector Scott entered the centre alone at 3:37pm and the court heard she was directed to Cauchi's location on level 4 by witnesses, some of whom followed behind her "armed with chairs".Inspector Amy Scott shot and killed Cauchi less than one and a half minutes after she arrived at the centre.The court heard Cauchi turned around and "charged towards Inspector Scott with the knife held out" as she yelled for him to "stop and drop the weapon".
Bondi Stabbing Bondi Junction Inquest Joel Cauchi Police Bondi Attack Westfield Stabbing Sydney Stabbing Sydney Amy Scott
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