Triple-0 operator didn’t check if call from Kerry Dare was related to ‘police in trouble’ incident on day of Wieambilla shooting

The operator who spoke to the wife of neighbour Alan Dare on the day of the Wieambilla shooting didn’t check whether a nearby ‘police in trouble incident’ posed a threat before he was shot dead.

Emma Donald, who took the 000 calls, at the inquest on Monday. Picture: NewsWire / Tertius Pickard

A triple-0 operator failed to check whether the gunshots and explosions reported by the wife of a good Samaritan killed in the ­Wieambilla shootings were related to a “police in trouble” incident unfolding nearby.

Townsville-based police communications operator Emma Donald told the sixth day of the coronial inquest into the December 2022 shooting she feared being accused of “snooping” if she checked whether Kerry Dare’s information was related to another incident on the same road.

Alan and Kerry Dare.

Ms Dare first called triple-0 at 5.13pm on December 12, 2022, to report fires, explosions, and “an electrical burning smell” that began 40 minutes earlier. During her second call four minutes later, her husband, Alan Dare, went to investigate with a neighbour.

At 4.30pm, four police officers from the nearby towns of Tara and Chinchilla were following up a missing person inquiry for school principal Nathaniel Train. Minutes after they jumped the gate, Mr Train and his brother, Gareth Train, ambushed them with gunfire.

Tara Constable Matthew Arnold was killed instantly and his partner Rachel McCrow was executed minutes later. Mr Dare was also killed by the Trains.

One officer, Randall Kirk, managed to escape in a police car after being shot in the hip. Constable Keely Brough hid for more than two hours in eight-inch tall bush scrub on a call with triple-0 as the Trains lit fires in an attempt to flush her out. Shortly after logging the first call from Ms Dare, the triple-0 system alerted Ms Donald that it could be a “repeat” job, with a pop-up warning her there was a “police in trouble” incident in the area.

The call taker said she did not click on the box for more information, in line with her training.

“At that time, I didn’t know if it was related or not,“ Ms Donald said. “We’ve been told in our training that if we look into a job that isn’t related, we most likely get in trouble for it because it’s technically snooping.”

Ms Dare was not told about the incident in her initial calls and was only instructed not to leave the property after her husband had left.

Ms Donald told the inquest she became aware of the shooting at 5.28pm – five minutes after Ms Dare got off the phone – when the operator was instructed to tell the Dares not to leave the property as “active offenders” were “shooting at police”. The call taker contacted Ms Dare at 5.31pm, and was told Mr Dare had been shot. They stayed on the phone for 30 minutes until Ms Dare was safely out of the area.

The inquest also heard from two experts who said the police response was appropriate and there was nothing more the two officers who escaped could have done to save their colleagues.

Constable Rachel McCrow, 26, and Constable Matthew Arnold, 29, were gunned down at the property in the western Darling Downs, about three hours west of Brisbane.

Queensland Police Service training operations co-ordinator Tracey Bailey said Constables Kirk and Brough were effectively on their own after being separated when fleeing the initial gunfire.

“The officers had no knowledge of that rural setting, they don’t even know where the house is at this stage, where the offenders may be,” she said.

Retired Queensland Police Service chief superintendent and former Special Emergency Response Team commander Stephen Dabinett commended the heroic efforts of the extraction team – led by Sergeant Andrew Gate – who rescued Constable Brough.