Lindt siege inquiry: Top cop admits ‘someone had to die’

A POLICE commander has revealed the devastating truth of the Lindt Cafe siege: a hostage had to die before police went in.

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A POLICE commander has revealed the devastating truth of the Lindt Cafe siege: a hostage had to die before police went in.

In a blunt admission the forward­ commander who finally ordered police to storm the cafe after manager Tori Johnson was shot said police had let the hostages down.

“Christ, you know, we have let them down but what do you do?” he said in his statement to the inquest into the deadly 2014 siege.

The detective chief superintendent who was in charge of the police response during the Lindt Siege. Picture: Craig Greenhill

Lindt cafe siege victim Tori Johnson at the window of the Cafe. Picture Channel 7

The assault team moves after gunman Man Monis opened fire.

It comes after four months of evidence before State Coroner Michael Barnes, during which senior officer have said the triggers for storming the cafe were not only the death or serious ­injury of a hostage but their ­“imminent” death or injury.

The detective chief superintendent yesterday admitted the risk of terrorist Man Monis having a bomb meant he was never going to order his officers into the cafe “unless someone was killed”.

But he admitted he was never told and never asked about what might have changed the course of the siege: that a bullet would not necessarily set off the bomb, only a detonator would.

Assistant counsel Jeremy Gormly SC put it to the officer that the whole siege was “managed on the basis that the police would never go in unless there was death or injury”.

“I don’t accept that,” the officer said, but then agreed that a plan for officers to storm the cafe and rescue hostages at a time of their choosing was never approved.

The officer said he accepted the blame for the deaths of Mr Johnson, fellow hostage Katrina Dawson and gunman Monis.

“Every day I think those three people lost their lives because of me. My decision,” he said.

Gunman Man Haron Monis died in a hail of police gunfire.

Katrina Dawson was killed by police bullets as they stormed the building.

“I can’t bring them back. The buck stops with me. I accept that your honour ... every day I think about this and wrack through my head what could I have done differently,­ but I could never mitigate the risk of a bomb.”

As Mr Johnson’s mother Rosie Connellan and Ms Dawson’s parents Jane and Alexander Dawson listened on, the officer said he would do the same thing today: “Presented with the same facts as I knew at 2.03am to 2.13am that day ... I would do what I did then today”.

He said there were “gaps” in what he should have been told, particularly in the final 10 minutes.