00:00A preliminary hearing into the Bondi Junction stabbing attack in which six people lost their
00:07lives in April in Sydney's east this year, and also resulted in the death of the attacker
00:13Joel Couchie, has taken place at New South Wales Coroner's Court today.
00:18The council assisting the coroner, Dr Peggy Dwyer SC, opened her side of the proceedings
00:25by detailing the events in the years of Joel Couchie's life in the lead up to this attack.
00:30She explained to the coroner that Mr Couchie had quite significant mental health issues,
00:36namely schizophrenia, and wasn't treated or medicated for those issues in the years leading
00:41up to the attack.
00:42She told the coroner that he had been sleeping rough in Sydney in a pavilion in Mooroobara
00:47in Sydney's eastern suburbs in the weeks leading up to the attack and his mental health had
00:52been deteriorating over some time.
00:56Dr Dwyer then went into quite confronting detail of the minutes of the attack itself
01:02at the Bondi Junction shopping centre, commencing with the stabbing of Ashley Good in line at
01:07a bakery and then detailing the killing of all six people who lost their lives on that day.
01:15Dr Dwyer then went to explain the key lines of inquiry which will be at the focus of this
01:20coronial inquest, which will take place in full next year.
01:24The first of which being whether Joel Couchie slipped through the cracks of the mental health
01:29system and what could have potentially been done such that his conditions were treated
01:34and he was less of a danger to the community.
01:37The interventions of New South Wales and Queensland police will be examined in that area.
01:43The other key issue was whether Westfield Centre Management, the company that operates
01:49the Westfield shopping centres and their subcontractors, whether any procedures, risk
01:57assessments, training for security guards could be improved.
02:01One thing that was flagged was that on that day the alarm wasn't triggered at Westfield
02:06in Bondi Junction until nine minutes after the attack had commenced and at the point
02:11the alarm was triggered, Joel Couchie had already been shot dead by a police inspector.
02:17The other key line of inquiry is looking at what can be improved or learnt for emergency
02:23services and the council assisting was quite clear that that wasn't to cast blame on any
02:29of the officers or people who attended that day and in particular singled out Inspector
02:35Amy Scott, the police officer who finally neutralised Joel Couchie and commended her
02:41work to protect the community.
02:44Also present here were the families of many of the victims of that attack and the family
02:50of Perez Tahir, the security guard who lost his life on that day.
02:55His two brothers were here, they travelled internationally to be here and be part of
02:59this process.
03:00They said that that was important to them to understand what happened.
03:05They said that they were proud of their brother and the work that he did on that day to try
03:09to protect the community and just doing his job.
03:12Here's what they had to say.
03:13Perez, he was a brave man and as you know he was bare handed and he just trying to stop
03:22the, he was on the duty at that time and he just trying to stop the attacker and gave
03:29his life.
03:30Now a key message from the brothers and from many of the people involved in this process
03:35is that the focus is on trying to learn and improve those systems such that a tragic event
03:40like this could be prevented in the future.
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