Did Lindt bosses turn off CCTV to save costs?

The explosive allegations about penny-pinching by the international chocolate giant that could have changed the course of the deadly 2014 siege have been revealed at the inquest.

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Lindt bosses have been accused of cutting off the CCTV cameras inside the café because they were too expensive to run.

The explosive allegations about penny-pinching by the international chocolate giant that could have changed the course of the deadly 2014 siege have been revealed at the inquest.

The two cameras would have given police the crucial view they never had inside the café as they battled with how to bring the siege to a safe end after terrorist Man Monis took 18 hostages.

Police storm the scene at 2.20am the morning after the siege began.

Instead they did not act until Monis murdered café manager Tori Johnson.

Barrister and mother-of-three Katrina Dawson died after being hit by fragments of police bullets when officers stormed the café with little idea of what they were going to confront inside.

The reason for the missing cameras was detailed at the inquest in Sydney last week by counsel for Ms Dawson’s family, Michael O’Connell SC, as her parents Jane and Alexander Dawson listened in court.

It came as Lindt opened its new $60 million factory at Marsden Park in Sydney’s west.

Ms O’Connell said the cost-cutting had been outlined in a statement to police investigators from another manager of the café who was not present during the 17-hour siege on December 15 and 16, 2014.

Katrina Dawson.

Tori Johnson (right) with partner Thomas Zinn.

Mr O’Connell SC was questioning the Tactical Operations Unit officer known by the codename of Deputy Tango Charlie as the inquest heard the three police snipers around Martin Place could only see three metres into the café.

They only had a clear view of Monis three times, the last at around 2am, three minutes before he fired his first shot at escaping hostages and 10 minutes before he killed Mr Johnson.

“We have some material from a manager of Lindt who wasn’t present inside the café…who provided a statement to investigators to the effect that there were cameras within the café, but they were not operational after a fit out conducted by the owners in January of 2013,” Mr O’Connell said.

A .308 Winchester calibre sniper bullet going through 6mm replica Lindt Cafe glass.

“As we understand it, there’s some evidence to the effect that it was too expensive to have those cameras running. Were you aware of any evidence about that?”

Deputy Tango Charlie, who was the adviser at the police forward command post, said he had not been aware of that.

Lindt rented the café from the owners of the heritage-listed Martin Place building but the company’s Australian boss, Steve Loane, told The Daily Telegraph the changes to the store’s layout were done by Lindt itself.

“It’s a heritage building and we had to move the cameras in the ceiling and that’s maybe where the expensive comment came from because that is very expensive to do that,” CEO Mr Loane said yesterday.

Floral tributes surrounded the siege scene in the days following the incident.

He said the café had made the decision because they had no problems with theft. The cameras had been aimed at the tills and the tills were moved.

“It wasn’t because we were not concerned about safety. We run a chocolate store. We had CCTV cameras in case of stealing,” Mr Loane said.

“A decision was made that we didn’t use the footage in the cameras so when we did the fit out, we did not update them.”

Mr Loane said they could not foresee what happened.

“I really wish that someone had not come in to our store and committed a terrorist act,” he said.

“Naturally we would have done anything to prevent what happened but it was not foreseeable.”

He said all Lindt establishments now had CCTV cameras.