Lindt siege: Distraught families angry at police decision to wait for Monis to act
POLICE and court bungles behind the Lindt cafe siege have destroyed faith in the legal system, says the partner of Lindt siege victim Tori Johnson.
NSW
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- Chapter 1: How a devil played us for fools
- Chapter 2: ‘The country is under attack’
- Chapter 3: The race to name a terrorist madman
- Chapter 4: The gunman and his hostages
- Chapter 5: Dead calm and then a storm
- Chapter 6: Staring death in the eyes
POLICE and court bungles behind the Lindt cafe siege have destroyed faith in the legal system, says the partner of Lindt siege victim Tori Johnson.
Thomas Zinn fears more people will lose their lives unless there are “significant” changes to the system in the wake of Man Haron Monis’s 2014 attack.
The families of Mr Johnson and second victim Katrina Dawson have slammed authorities over their handling of the Islamic State-inspired terror attack, as State Coroner Michael Barnes prepares to release his findings from the 18-month inquiry tomorrow.
Mr Johnson’s mother yesterday slammed claims from the NSW Police Association’s the inquest was “a witch hunt into policing rather than a sober, level-headed search for the truth”.
A livid Rosie Connellan said she could never forgive the police decision not to enter the cafe until someone was killed or injured.
READ THE POLICE VERSION OF EVENTS IN FULL
“This gentle soul HAD to die before police would enter the Lindt cafe to rescue anyone,” she posted to Facebook with a photo of her son yesterday.
“It’s a national disgrace. To say this is a witch hunt against the police means they have learnt nothing from this tragedy! The tears keep rolling.”
Police only stormed the besieged cafe after Monis shot dead Mr Johnson at 2.13am on December 16, after a 17-hour standoff.
Ms Dawson (right), a barrister and mother-of-three, was killed by fragments of police bullets in the resulting crossfire.
Mr Zinn, Mr Johnson’s partner of 14 years, told The Daily Telegraph yesterday he feared the outcome of a similar attack would be far worse in future unless drastic changes were made to the authorities’ response. He described his partner as a “true hero left to die”.
“I have lost all faith in our legal system and authorities to protect us, the public, from major incidents,” he said.
“We, the family, hope that the inquest will bring significant changes to the way of thinking of our courts, the police and other authorities.
“If not, next time around chances are high of a lot more casualties. That’s the reality.”
Mr Zinn said that Mr Johnson always put other people “before his own interests”.
“He took his role as manager very serious, in particular during the siege. He had opportunities to leave the stronghold, but decided not to,” Mr Zinn said.
“Tori would have never left people behind no matter the circumstances.
“In the last hours of the siege he spent time with hostages that were less mobile and would not have had the opportunity to escape, including a pregnant woman … a true hero left to die.”
Ms Dawson’s family said they felt “let down” after listening through months of inquest hearings.
“What I said in the beginning was that we weren’t after retribution. But what we did want desperately was for them to have the courage to tell the truth,” her mother Jane told the ABC’s Four Corners program last night.
Jane Dawson said: “I think we all had this feeling that the police are there to protect us all and that they know what they’re doing — that’s one of the worst things about this is that we feel very let down.”
Ms Connellan told of her own disappointment with authorities while listening to inquest evidence.
“We thought that Monis had killed Tori and it was relatively simple: the police had done everything possible and that was it,” she told Four Corners. “As it unfolded it was just, it was horrific. Every day we thought: ‘This can’t get worse’, and every day it got worse, what was coming out in evidence.”
Several family members and hostages criticised the decision to wait for Monis to act before storming the building.
Ms Dawson’s father Alexander “Sandy” Dawson added: “To admit the mistakes and then talk about what they would do to rectify those mistakes … but we never saw anything like that.”
Cafe staff member Jarrod Morton-Hoffman told Four Corners he didn’t understand how police could have waited for someone to die.
“I don’t understand why you wouldn’t have a plan in place or their management wouldn’t have a plan in place before that to say ‘hey, we are going in on our own terms’,” he said.
Ms Dawson’s brother Angus said: “The idea that we had to wait for somebody to be killed or seriously injured before the police would act was staggering.”
Some family members said they were looking forward to the Coroner’s report so they could begin to move on.
Roma Herat told The Telegraph yesterday that her son Joel, who continues to work at the Lindt cafe, just wanted it to be over.
“Joel needs to get on with his life,” Roma said.
She said that he was busy concentrating on his final exams this week. “He’s hoping to finish everything (university) all up, it is very important to him to get this milestone out of the way,” she said.
NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller plans to hold a press conference after the Coroner hands down his findings. He is expected to address any criticism of the police handling of the siege.
Family submissions to the inquest are expected to be particularly critical of the police hierarchy at the time, including Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione and his then deputy and terrorism unit chief Cath Burn.
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