New video of hero cop Amy Scott facing Westfield Bondi Junction killer silences inquest

WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT

A newly released video shows what hero police officer Amy Scott saw in the terrifying seconds before she confronted Westfield Bondi Junction killer Joel Cauchi, driving home the gravity of her bravery and quick thinking even as she believed she was facing certain death.

The evidence, which brought a hushed silence over the coronial inquest into the mass casualty event, was released on the same day that an elite NSW Ambulance paramedic told the court his specialist unit was unable to enter the centre because they didn’t have their life-saving ballistic vests and helmets.

The NSW State Coroner on Thursday released a computer-generated video showing the layout of the shopping centre and Inspector Scott’s path through it, as Cauchi was attacking people with a military knife on April 13, 2024.

Six people sustained fatal injuries in the three-minute attack before Scott shot and killed Cauchi on the fifth floor.

The video shows Cauchi pacing around the escalators with the large knife before going upstairs.

Scott is captured by the same camera entering on the ground floor, then by another camera ascending the escalator in pursuit, with French nationals Silas Despreaux and Damien Geurot right behind her.

Inspector Amy Scott.Credit: Kate Geraghty

The CCTV from the fifth floor of the centre shows how close Cauchi came to a shop owner, appearing to consider attacking him, before continuing to run.

Scott and Cauchi are captured on CCTV facing off in the tense final seconds of the rampage.

The video, released on Thursday, replaces their CCTV image with computerised figures and zooms in on Scott’s perspective.

It shows exactly what the inspector would have seen as she aimed down the barrel of her service-issued weapon. Cauchi was just 6.5 metres away, and in full sprint toward her with the blade drawn.

The computer-generated video shows the moment Inspector Amy Scott faces down Joel Cauchi.Credit: NSW Police

“He was going to kill me,” Scott said earlier this week.

“It’s a peculiar thing, it’s very fast, but in my mind it was very slow. I knew my first shot had hit him from the jolt of his body, but he continued to come towards me.”

Media and the families of victims who had sat in the coroner’s court this week watched the video in stunned silence.

Cauchi died on the floor of the shopping centre. Scott attempted to revive him after clearing his weapon.

The inquest on Thursday heard from a duty officer within NSW Ambulance who managed the elite paramedics of the Special Operations Team (SOT) on that day.

As emergency services rushed to the scene, confusion swirled for almost an hour about whether a second offender remained on the loose.

The duty officer, known by the pseudonym SOT1, told the inquest on Thursday he learnt about the mass casualty event accidentally after calling the ambulance control centre for another incident.

“Someone has just gone nuts with a gun in Bondi; we don’t have time for this,” the control centre told SOT1.

Ambulances parked outside Westfield Bondi Junction on the day of the attack.Credit: Oscar Colman

The perplexed duty officer, looking through his computer system, saw members of his SOT had been dispatched to Bondi Junction without him being advised.

But it soon became clear there would be an issue – the SOT paramedics would not be able to integrate with the tactical police crews sweeping the centre for a second attacker and further victims because they did not have their ballistic vests and helmets.

In September 2023, NSW Ambulance directed the ballistic gear was to be taken out of local stations and put into an undisclosed central location somewhere in Sydney. SOT1 called one of his officers in Penrith to collect the ballistic gear from storage and then drive it to Bondi Junction.

SOT1 told the inquest that forgetting to alert the duty officer, and the centralised PPE, both delayed the SOT paramedics.

“There was a delay for the paramedics ... being able to directly participate in any of the specialist police groups’ activity until that ballistic PPE arrived on scene,” SOT1 said.

“We need the equipment to be available at a location that is convenient and or located in the vehicles that we operate from, to allow us to be able to respond directly to scene – without having to divert to retrieve that equipment.”

At one point, a SOT at Bondi called the duty officer and asked if he could use ballistic gear provided by tactical police.

The duty officer said he had to go up to his boss, who had to go up to her boss, to get approval as precious minutes ticked by.

Muzafar Ahmad Tahir, brother of murdered security guard Faraz Tahir, arrives at the NSW Coroners Court for the Bondi Junction tragedy inquest.Credit: Kate Geraghty

The inquest has heard the delay did not have any impact on any of the people attacked by Cauchi because some paramedic crews had got inside the centre before police locked it down.

Faraz Tahir, 30, died a hero confronting Joel Cauchi on his first shift as a security guard at Bondi.

Faraz Tahir, a security guard stabbed by Cauchi, was being treated by paramedics inside the centre.

Tahir was stretchered out just after 4pm and critical care paramedic Chris Wilkinson desperately attempted to save his life with surgery on the roadside. But Tahir did not survive.

Wilkinson told the inquest on Wednesday that he was “frustrated” at being forced to wait outside while fearing others like Tahir might have been dying untreated inside.

Police ultimately realised Cauchi had acted alone after viewing CCTV and broadcast a message at 4.27pm confirming there was no active threat, but that communication was not shared with NSW Ambulance.

That meant an ambulance assistant commissioner declared the Westfield a “hot zone” at 4.28pm – one minute after it had been cleared by police.

SOT1 told the inquest his officers were not part of a standalone unit, but rather were only “activated” when a major incident required them.

The inquest heard it’s common for 35 SOTs to be rostered on for a 10-week bloc despite an expected minimum of 45.

The duty officer told the inquest he had repeatedly called for more paramedics to be trained and added to the SOT roster, and for it to become a standalone unit.

SOT1 reiterated that he believed there was “no clinical impact” on the victims of the Bondi Junction massacre, but hoped the lessons learnt would translate to a change for his unit.

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