Killer’s mum pleaded for help, but dad haunted by ‘demons’ too, Bondi Junction stabbing inquest told

Five years before Joel Cauchi killed shoppers in Bondi Junction Westfield, his mother had begged doctors for help as he scribbled notes suggesting he was “under Satanic control”, that he had become obsessed with pornography, showered compulsively and had even changed how he moved.

But Cauchi’s father told the same experts he, too, had been “traumatised by demons” and did not want his son on medication.

An inquest has heard of Joel Cauchi’s troubled mental health history.Credit: Facebook

Clinical notes, Cauchi’s own writings and emails from his desperate mother have painted the fullest picture of an ultimately fatal disintegration after Cauchi stopped taking medication.

The coronial inquest into Cauchi’s attack on the Westfield on March 13, 2024, resumed for its third week on Monday to hear evidence from psychiatrists and registered nurses from a centre that treated Cauchi in his home town of Toowoomba, Queensland.

One registered nurse, who knew Cauchi between 2011 and 2019, turned off the TV when news of the tragedy appeared on March 13, 2024.

She had just lost someone in her family to murder and didn’t want her children to see the news, but she had no idea who had carried out the horrific attack. And then Cauchi’s name lit up on her phone.

“I vomited when I saw it was him,” the nurse, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told the inquest.

“It’s odd. It’s incongruent with what I know of Joel. It really doesn’t make any sense.”

The nurse was part of a team monitoring Cauchi in monthly consultations for years because he was on a strong anti-psychotic medication called Clopine to manage treatment-resistant schizophrenia.

He was on a second smaller dose of Abilify, a second medication used to treat his obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Cauchi was diligent with his medication and he never missed appointments. The nurse said the man was anxious about “relapsing” into illness.

“He didn’t want to get unwell, and he was very conscientious,” the nurse said.

“He had anxiety around it. He wanted to get support and make sure he did the right thing.”

The nurse was monitoring Cauchi as the centre slightly reduced his Clopine dose around 2016-17.

Cauchi was feeling better physically and mentally, and noticed boosted energy levels and improved capacity to study, the nurse told the court. He reported no hallucinations or violent tendencies.

Cauchi, under the care of his psychiatrist at the same centre, completely came off Clopine in mid-2018. He began refusing to take Abilify in June 2019.

Both nurses who gave evidence on Monday said they had never seen a patient go off Clopine and not transition to a replacement anti-psychotic.

But Cauchi, by late 2019, was completely unmedicated for the first time in 15 years.

Just weeks later, however, Cauchi’s mother contacted the centre and said her son’s behaviour was changing in terrifying ways.

“I know you thought that it wasn’t having any effect, but I have noticed a gradual decline in his condition,” Michele Cauchi wrote in November 2019.

“I have a feeling he is now hearing voices.

“I would hate to see him have to go back into hospital after 20 years of being stable on medication. I would love to see him being able to live successfully, independently, and doing as well as he was a year ago when he first moved out of home.”

Over the phone, Michele Cauchi told one of the centre’s nurses that her son’s notes said he was “under Satanic control from religious beings”.

Further, he was showering compulsively, had taken on a strange “gait”, and was wearing layers of clothing to stop himself getting sick.

Michele Cauchi outside her Toowoomba home in the days after the attack.Credit: Nine News

Cauchi was also fixated on pornography, and emailed the centre asking if they could help him get a phone or internet provider that would prevent him from accessing pornography.

The following day, on November 21, 2019, Cauchi’s nurse spoke to Joel’s father, Andrew, over the phone.

A clinical note, detailing their conversation, shows Andrew Cauchi did not want his son to go back on the medicine.

“Information given to his father, who became adamant that he did not want his son to go on medication as it will kill him,” the note reads.

“Father spoke that he himself had been traumatised by demons when awake and hears voices and is not on medication.”

The Cauchi family are very religious, and the inquest has heard Andrew Cauchi has mental health problems.

The doctors and nurses treating Cauchi urged him to go back on medication, but he did not want to.

In February 2020, Cauchi was preparing to move to Brisbane. It would have taken him far from his family and Toowoomba.

Cauchi’s worried mother called again, telling centre that her son’s unit was filthy, he was uncharacteristically swearing, and she feared he would become homeless if he moved to Brisbane.

But one month later, in March, Cauchi was discharged and was out on his own and no one had the power to force him back onto his medication, the inquest heard.

“Don’t you think the clinic should have followed up with Joel after March 2020 to ensure he found a new psychiatrist?” barrister for some of the victims’ families, Sue Chrysanthou, SC, asked one nurse.

“That would have been ideal,” the nurse said.

Cauchi could not be forcefully medicated unless detained under the Mental Health Act. That could happen only if he posed an imminent threat to himself, the inquest has heard.

“It’s not something Joel could have been forced to do. His rights are taken into consideration,” one nurse told the inquest on Monday.

Cauchi, in 2020, had multiple run-ins with police and his parents, including over a growing fixation he developed for military knives.

By March 2024, the fears of Cauchi’s mother had borne out; he was homeless and sleeping on a beach in Sydney.

One month later, he would take one of his large military knives and kill six people in Bondi Junction Westfield before being shot dead by a NSW Police inspector.