Brighton siege gunman started looking at extremist material when his mentor went on leave: inquest
The Brighton siege gunman, who took a sex worker hostage and killed a hotel worker in a fatal attack, was left without an important service for months.
The Brighton siege gunman started looking at extremist material before the horror events in 2017 because a mentor assigned to move him away from radical material was on leave.
Yacqub Khayre took an escort hostage and killed receptionist Kai Hao before dying in a shootout with police that also injured three officers four years ago.
On Tuesday an inquest examining his death heard that his religious mentor – assigned to help him move away from extremism and to educate him about Islam – who was on leave for months before the fatal siege.
That is when Khayre started looking at the extremist material.
The 29-year-old was on parole and taking part in a program to help Muslim prisoners to address radicalisation and reintegrate into society, the Coroners Court of Victoria was told.
A former manager of the program, who cannot be identified, said he wasn’t concerned Khayre didn’t have a mentor at the time because he appeared “fairly stable”.
The mentor was absent from February 2017 and did not return before the attack in June that year, the court was told.
There was a “distinct increase” in Khayre’s viewing of online material related to extremist ideologies and terrorism from April 25 of that year, the court was previously told.
This material included articles about the Lindt cafe siege in Sydney and the shooting of two Victoria Police officers.
He also watched videos about ISIS, al-Qaeda and searched for “new anti-terror tactics”.
But counsel assisting Rachel Ellyard asked if “with hindsight” the absence of a mentor was a vulnerability for the gunman.
“In hindsight – I would much have preferred he was with a mentor,” the manager told the court.
It was also during his stint in jail in 2013 for other serious offences he started lighting fires, the manager told Coroner Audrey Jamieson on Tuesday.
“He was experiencing anxieties of being accommodated with unwanted prisoners and associates and had been lighting fires in his cell to prevent officers from moving him,” the man, who cannot be identified, said.
Khayre had a lengthy criminal history including priors for firearm offences, burglary, arson and recklessly causing injury.
The killer hired a service apartment at Buckingham International Serviced Apartments in the exclusive suburb of Brighton.
He arranged for a female sex worker to come to the hotel and then tied her up with cable ties about 4pm on the siege.
Khayre fired a shot into the floor and then left the woman alone while he fatally shot receptionist Kai Hao in the chest and stomach. The 36-year-old victim was newly-married and a devoted son.
He was described by his mother as “a simple and honest person who was happy as long as others were happy”.
The sex worker, an international student who was supplementing her income, managed to free herself and dial Triple-0 when Khayre left the room to attack the receptionist.
During the call Khayre also spoke to the operator.
“It’s a hostage situation,” he told the emergency services operator.
“No one come into the room, room 11 or else the hostage dies.”
“The clerk at the front is dead.
“There’s a bomb in premises as well.”
The voice of the hostage can then be heard again: “There’s a bomb.”
“Help me – quickly, please,” she tells the operator, before the call is cut off.
The inquest continues.