Coroner's impossible job to make sense of mass stabbing

West Australian

26-04-2025

A year on, Bill Mohana is still haunted.
"It never leaves you," he recalls of his witnessing the aftermath of the stabbing spree at Sydney's Bondi Junction shopping centre in which seven people were killed and 12 others injured including a nine-month-old girl.
"When I tell the story, it's like it was yesterday," he tells AAP.
Mr Mohana went to work at Hair Royale salon in the Westfield complex on April 13, 2024 thinking it was an ordinary day.
However, he was forever changed by the fear of uncertainty and then sheer violence that unfolded as 40-year-old Joel Cauchi stalked through the floors of the centre with a 30-centimetre knife.
Not knowing what was going on amid the chaos and screams, Mr Mohana turned off the music and lights in his shop, shut the door and told his staff to hide in a back room.
"It was horrific, terrifying - honestly it was like a near death experience," he says.
"You're just pretty much waiting to die."
Dawn Singleton, 25, Ashlee Good, 38, Jade Young, 47, Pikria Darchia, 55, Yixuan Cheng, 27 and security guard Faraz Tahir, 30 were those killed in the attack.
Mr Mohana is one of many now looking for answers from an inquest into the mass stabbing due to begin on Monday.
Hearings before Coroner Teresa O'Sullivan at Lidcombe are expected to run for five weeks.
She will hear evidence from experts and eyewitnesses examining myriad issues including Cauchi's background, mental health and treatment, and his communication with NSW and Queensland police.
The 40-year-old lived a largely transient life until he was shot and killed.
He stopped receiving treatment for schizophrenia in early 2020 and moved from Queensland to Sydney's east in December 2023.
Ms O'Sullivan will examine how security guards employed at Bondi Junction Westfield and the media both responded as the tragedy unfolded.
She will make recommendations, if needed, after the evidence wraps up.
Psychiatrist and forensic mental health expert Lee Knight says families of the victim and those there on the day will have experienced untold trauma.
"They were just in the wrong place at the wrong time," he says.
"That's really senseless and it's really difficult to make sense of."
The psychological effects went well beyond those who were there, Mr Knight says, and could also impact those with panic disorders or anxiety who were already afraid of going out in public.
He welcomes the inquest, saying it is important to find out what potentially went wrong to prevent similar tragedies in future.
In reporting on events like this, the media has to take steps to remain sensitive to victims and their families while not stigmatising mental illness, Mr Knight says.
The hope is that the inquest's findings will help an under-resourced mental health industry prevent people like Cauchi falling through the cracks, he adds.
The media's reporting has already been thrown into the spotlight, with Ms Singleton's fiance Ashley Wildey suing Channel Nine in the NSW Supreme Court.
He claims Nine's 60 Minutes program and sister outlet the Sydney Morning Herald breached copyright with images of the 25-year-old.
In court earlier this month, Wildey's barrister Sue Chysanthou SC called the situation "extremely distressing".
The mass killing also amplified wider safety concerns for those working in the security industry, according to Nicholas Richard of the United Workers Union.
He hopes the inquest will scrutinise how sub-contracting impacted the safety of security guards, the level of training supplied and whether guards were taught how to properly use protective equipment on the job.
"Clients and companies in the security industry need to understand the issues facing security workers and make fundamental changes to keep workers and the public safer," he says.
Ahead of the anniversary, a memorial was established at Bondi Junction with displays of photographs and messages on floral tributes laid after the mass homicide.