‘Lost touch with reality’: Grieving family of Bondi Junction killer speak

The anguished parents of the man who stabbed at least 18 people in a deadly rampage through Westfield Bondi Junction said their “very sick boy” had lost touch with reality, as Premier Chris Minns launched an $18 million coronial inquiry into the attack styled on the state’s response to the 2014 Lindt Cafe siege.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese confirmed on Monday that a soon-to-be married Chinese student was the sixth person killed by Joel Cauchi, a 40-year-old Queensland man who stormed the shopping centre on Saturday afternoon and slashed at passersby with a 30-centimetre hunting knife until NSW Police Inspector Amy Scott shot him dead.

Cauchi’s devastated parents told reporters outside their Toowoomba home on Monday their son had a fascination with knives and reacted angrily when they confiscated combat knives from him last year. They believed his mental health began to worsen when he moved to Brisbane five years ago and stopped taking his medication.

“He was obviously not in his right mind. He was somehow triggered into psychosis and lost touch with reality,” mother Michele Cauchi said.

“I made myself a servant to my son when I found out he had a mental illness,” his father Andrew Cauchi said. “To you he’s a monster. To me, he was a very sick boy.”

When asked if Cauchi may have had any reason to target women, his father replied: “Yes. Because he wanted a girlfriend. And he’s got no social skills. He was frustrated out of his brain.”

Yixuan Cheng, a Chinese student, has been named as the sixth victim of the Bondi Junction stabbing attack.Credit: Nine News

NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb said police would speak to Cauchi’s Queensland family in trying to establish a motive for the attack. Whether Cauchi singled out women is a line of inquiry for investigators.

“The videos speak for themselves, don’t they? That’s certainly a line of inquiry for us,” Webb said. “It’s obvious to me, it’s obvious for detectives, that ... the offender had focused on women and avoided the men.”

Joel Cauchi’s parents said they had done all they could to keep him out of trouble.Credit: Facebook

Webb said police hadn’t found anything startling in a storage container rented by Cauchi. The results of a toxicology report, which will reveal whether Cauchi was affected by drugs at the time of the attack, are “some days and weeks away”, she said.

The coronial investigation will pursue any interactions the killer had with the NSW or Queensland governments in the lead-up to Saturday, Minns said.

“It’s important that the government learns from the events of the weekend, similar perhaps in scale or size to the Lindt Cafe siege of several years ago,” Minns said at a press conference. “This has been a terrible, terrible few days in NSW.”

NSW Police said their sole interaction with Cauchi had been last year when he was moved on while sleeping rough at The Rocks.

NSW Health officials are also combing their records for any details on the attacker after discovering he saw doctors in NSW late last year for help with an “ailment” with his ear.

It was unclear whether Cauchi was referred to mental health services after either of those interactions, Health Minister Ryan Park and NSW Police Assistant Commissioner Tony Cook said.

NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb says police would speak to killer Joel Cauchi’s family in Queensland.Credit: James Brickwood

“I’m not saying he fell through the cracks at all,” Park said. “We don’t have individual psychologists monitoring individual people in the community. What we have is a networked system of support.

“This person had not come into contact with a large number or significant number of mental health services and resources. That doesn’t mean we ... shouldn’t have a look at our system.”

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Monday morning confirmed 27-year-old Chinese student Yixuan Cheng was the sixth fatality in Cauchi’s attack.

Cheng was completing a master’s degree in economics at the University of Sydney and planned to get married after graduation, her family told Chinese news service Sydney Today.

She had called her fiance in China on Saturday to show him clothes she was trying on at Westfield. Afterwards, the fiance, identified only as Wang, lost contact with her and anxiously watched the news for 24 hours until he and Cheng’s family learned of her fate.

The Chinese embassy in Canberra confirmed that one Chinese national had died in the attack and another had been injured.

University of Sydney vice chancellor Mark Scott said the university was working with the consulate and he was “shocked and saddened” at Saturday’s senseless violence.

Minns also announced the government had sought advice from the NSW Police and Cabinet Office for information on the “current restrictions” on security guards in NSW, and would consider “any additional measures to keep the public safe”. That would not include consideration of firearms. Most retail security staff are unarmed in NSW.

Governor-General David Hurley and his wife Linda pay tribute.Credit: Steven Siewert

One of the slain victims was security guard Faraz Tahir, a 30-year-old refugee from Pakistan on his first day shift at the centre. Another security guard, Muhammad Taha, is recovering in hospital after Cauchi stabbed him in the belly.

Park said on Monday he was “delighted” to report the condition of the nine-month-old daughter of victim Ashlee Good had improved from critical to serious.

“In the darkest of times comes sometimes the brightest of lights,” he said.

Seven of the people injured remained in hospitals across Sydney after a woman was discharged from Prince of Wales Hospital on Monday. Most who remain in hospital are in a serious but stable condition. A woman in her 20s is in a critical condition at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital.

Police have removed 100 pieces of evidence from the Westfield shopping centre for forensic analysis and on Monday began to interview 50 witnesses who came forward with information about the deadly rampage.

Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and Governor-General David Hurley were among hundreds of mourners who left floral tributes at the site of the attack on Monday.

The centre will remain closed on Tuesday to allow some family members of those killed to visit the site. The Westfield will reopen later this week.

The sails of the Sydney Opera House were lit up on Monday evening while flags flew at half-mast at government buildings across the country in honour of those killed.

Local federal MP Allegra Spender has told constituents she is working with state MPs and local councils on a public act of commemoration.

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