Lindt Cafe siege inquest: Top cop ‘refused’ to approve ‘sound plan’

THE HEAD of the state’s crack Tactical Operations Unit believed they had a “sound plan” to rescue the hostages from the Lindt Cafe but three hours before anyone died, his boss refused to approve it.

Elly Chen was forced to stand in the Lindt cafe window during the siege. Picture: Seven News

THE HEAD of the state’s crack Tactical Operations Unit believed they had a “sound plan” to rescue the hostages from the Lindt Cafe but three hours before anyone died, his boss refused to approve it.

The superintendent, referred to as TA, told the inquest into the December 2014 siege that it would have been safer to storm the cafe under that plan than to leave them with an armed gunman, Man Monis, who claimed to have a bomb in his backpack.

He revealed he twice went to his boss, the police commander in charge, Assistant Commissioner Mark Jenkins, at 11.21pm on December 15 and again at 12.15am on December 16 seeking approval but it was refused.

Monis outside the Downing Centre in 2009.

TA, who was the police force’s main tactical adviser during the siege, said that if the so-called Direct Action (DA) plan, under which police would take control of the siege and take Monis by surprise, had been approved, the TOU would have put people and resources into place to carry it out.

It would still have to have been green-lighted by Mr Jenkins.

But they never even got permission to get into place.

Instead, police waited until cafe manager Tory Johnson was killed by Monis at 2.13am to storm the cafe. Barrister Katrina Dawson died after being hit by fragments of police bullets.

Rather than the DA plan, police had waited to execute what they called their emergency action plan which could only be triggered by the death or serious injury of a hostage.

NSW State Coroner Michael Barnes asked TA if it had been his assessment that the DA plan could have been executed without the loss of hostage lives.

Tori Johnson and Katrina Dawson were killed during the siege, together with Monis. Picture: Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images

There was a massive outpouring of grief after Ms Dawson and Mr Johnson were killed. Picture: John Grainger

“That’s the aim,” TA said.

The plan entailed the TOU using an entry into the cafe which Monis would not have expected, rather than the front doors through which they eventually executed the emergency action plan.

Questioned by counsel for Mr Johnson’s family, Michael O’Connell SC, that there would probably be a loss of life.

“I didn’t say that,” TA said.

He said the plan complete with schematic drawings had first been provided to Mr Jenkins at the 11.21pm briefing which had been attended by other senior officers including the liaison officer from the Australian Defence Force, who had set up a replica of the cafe at Holsworthy arms base to practise a DA.

TA also said the DA plan was different to the EA, clashing with evidence earlier given Mr Jenkins that there was only a “small evolution” between the plans.

Mr Jenkins has earlier told the inquest that he formed the view that in the circumstances that it would have been “very very risky” for police to execute their DA plan.

The inquest in Sydney continues.