Qld police failed to get Bondi Junction killer help before stabbing spree, inquest told

A coroner is likely to recommend systemic changes after an overworked police force failed to connect a mass killer to the mental health system before his unprovoked attack.

Joel Cauchi, 40, had been diagnosed with schizophrenia as a teenager and was experiencing psychotic symptoms when he killed six people and injured 10 at Sydney’s Westfield Bondi Junction in April 2024.

An inquest has been told Queensland Police had several chances to reconnect him with mental health treatment and medication ahead of the tragedy.

During a police call-out to the family home in Toowoomba, Joel Cauchi (right) accused father Andrew (left) of stealing his knife collection.

Cauchi had been homeless and living apart from his family in Toowoomba, near Brisbane, when he travelled to Sydney and was shot dead by police during his stabbing rampage.

He had stopped taking his medication in 2019 and stopped seeing a psychiatrist in 2020.

As the inquest continued on Tuesday, Queensland police made several calls for change, including more mental health officers in the force.

Joel Cauchi wields a knife during his murderous rampage at Westfield Bondi Junction in April 2024.

They also suggested that laws on when mentally ill people could be forced to take a psychiatric exam be amended to become less confusing.

Inspector Bernard Quinlan, manager of the Queensland Police vulnerable persons unit, said the changes were needed to prevent the criminalisation of those with mental illness.

“Mental health shouldn’t just be a police response,” he told the NSW Coroners Court.

“It’s a no-brainer to me that there should be appropriate responses that are health-led.”

Counsel assisting, Peggy Dwyer, said changing legislation around police powers was “shaping up to be a significant recommendation” at the inquest.

This week’s evidence has focused on one particular incident in January 2023, when Cauchi called police to his family’s Toowoomba home.

He accused his father, Andrew, of stealing his knife collection, telling officers they had to be returned or he would become bankrupt or homeless.

While a follow-up visit to the Cauchi home was requested, the fill-in police mental health incident co-ordinator for the Darling Downs region saw the email but forgot to act on it due to an “oversight”.

On Tuesday, the co-ordinator that he was filling in for backed the officer, despite his mistake.

“His oversight on that email is devastating,” she said as she became emotional in the witness box.

“It’s not indicative of him as an officer or how he performed my role.”

She also backed a call for further assistance, saying police were under greater pressure due to the increasing number of callouts relating to mental health, despite not being trained in this area.

“If it’s not bleeding and it’s not on fire, the police are the people who have to attend,” she said.

On Monday, the court was told that in May 2021, police were called to Cauchi’s unit in Brisbane after residents heard a man screaming and the sound of someone being hit.

He told attending officers he had been slamming his fridge.

Cauchi was also pulled over three times in 2020 and 2021 by highway patrol officers for erratic driving, the court was told.

The inquest continues.

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AAP