From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey. It's Wednesday, April thirty, twenty twenty five. The trial of accused mushroom murderer Aaron Patterson gets underway in Victoria today. Patterson will defend three counts of murder and one count of attempted murder relating to a twenty twenty three lunch at her Lee and Gatha home. Voters returned the Canadian Liberal Party to government on Tuesday, and PM Mark Carney vowed to stand up to Donald Trump.
We are over the shark of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons. We will chart a new path forward because this is Canada and we decide what happens here.
Inspector Amy Scott entered the Bondi Junction Westfield mass stabbing incident with the expectations she would die trying.
To take down a murderer.
That's the evidence from the veteran New South Wales police officer at a coronial inquest into the deaths of six victims and assailant Joel Couci. Today, Amy Scott's untold story.
In my head, I'd resigned myself to the fact that I was probably gonna die.
It's the story.
Inspector Amy Scott has never told in public the moment she shot dead a mass murderer. The New South Wales police commander has been hailed as a heroine for the day in April twenty twenty four when a Queensland man, forty year old Joel Couchy, walked into a Westfield shopping mall and started stabbing people.
Scott has rejected scores.
Of requests for interviews and comments since that day. She's said nothing in public, and you get the feeling she'd never have spoken at all if not for a coronial inquest where she on Tuesday gave evidence about her actions. Scott told the inquest she was driving through the area when she heard an alert on the scanner. We've used voice actors throughout this episode to bring you the words spoken in court.
Amy Scott.
We're getting multiple calls, multiple stabbings, multiple locations at Bondi Westfield, and.
I knew right then it was very real.
One minute and twenty five seconds later, Scott was at the mall where shoppers rushed to tell her a man with a knife was on the rampage. She recalled them, saying.
He's in there with a knife. He's stabbing people, he's killing people. You've got to help us get in there. I considered it to be an active armed offender. I also knew I couldn't wait anymore for my colleagues to arrive, and I just had to go in.
She radioed her colleagues. I'm pretty sure, I said on the.
Radio, just so you know they're active, I'm going in. I gave the location I went in at. My intention was to try and find the threat.
Two of the most famous civilians from that day were Frenchmen Silas despro and Damian Guerreau. Wuerreo was famously captured on video wielding a bollard to shepherd Couchy down on escalator to shield civilians on the floor above. It became known, of course, as bollard man. Scott recalled one of the men tapping her on the back and saying.
You're on your own.
We are coming with you, and I said, that's great, but can you stay behind me the whole time.
When she reached the upper floors of the mall, guided by shoppers towards the assailant, Scott saw Couchie about twenty meters away. The frenchman behind Scott were shouting shoot him, shoot him. She shouted at Couchi to stop. He started running away and she sped after him. Couchie stopped again, and Scott saw people hiding behind a pot plan.
I saw a lady and a pram, two ladies and a pram. One had run away, but the other had hidden behind a large pot plant about fifteen meters on the other side of Joel. I mouthed at her to run.
Then Couci turned in the woman's direction.
I yelled out mate to get his attention back to me, and he just sprinted downhill at me with the knife out. He was going to kill me. It was very fast, but in my mind it was extremely slow. I knew the first shot had to hit him, but that was because of a jolt in his body. But he continued to come towards me, and I also was simultaneously saying stop, drop it.
She fired two more shorts.
I had not been able to stop the threat with the first one.
Scott's third bullet missed Couchy and landed in the pot plant where a woman had been hiding.
After she'd shot Coucy.
Scott lent over him, flicked the knife away, turned him into the recovery position and began CPR.
She knew he was dead.
I want to acknowledge the courage and the bravery. Some of them have been unable to return, and they have my whole hearted support, love and care. I hope that the public understands that they were absolutely extraordinary. They saved lives on that day and they put themselves at risk.
Scott has been hailed for her courage, but in an emotional moment of testimony, she praised the young officers working under her in the Eastern Suburbs Police Local Area Command.
We want to think that police don't feel feared, don't feel the burden and pressure of what everyday humans do. I can assure you that they do. I can assure you on that day that they were the people running in and whilst I was the person that faced Joel, those young officers ran in with the exact same intentions.
She said her police training taught her to run towards danger and that an officer has a sixty to seventy percent chance of survival with an armed defender if the officer accompanied by another cop and wearing a stab proof.
Vest I was neither of those.
I actually felt nauseous in my head. I resigned myself to the fact that I was probably going to die.
At the beginning of her evidence, Scott made a short statement.
I offer my sincere condolences to the family and the friends of the victims. I cannot and I don't even begin to imagine what every day since April thirteen, twenty twenty four has been like for you all.
Some of the first responders who worked on that day have been too traumatized to return to work. That day, as tragic as it was, it gave me faith in humanity, restored some faith in humanity and the goodness of people. After the break how Joel Couci became a killer. State Coroner Teresa O. Sullivan explained on day one of the
inquest Monday this week. The purpose of the hearing was to provide families in the community with answers about how the massacre occurred and how such events might be prevented in future. That means digging into what drove Joel Couci to stab six strangers to death. His victims were shoppers, Dawn Singleton, Jade young Yeshwan Cheng, Ashley Good and Picrea Dacia. Couchi also killed a security guard for ours to hear, who was on his first shift at Westfield Bondi Junction.
Counsel assisting the inquest is doctor Peggy Dwyer sc We've used a voice actor to bring you Dwyer's words.
Mister Couchi wounded ten others before being fatally shot by New South Wales Police. Of those ten people, two were men and both of those men were very seriously injured.
Dwyer said Couci, who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia, was effectively without treatment or adequate supervision for nearly five years before his death. She said Couch's medication was reduced and then ceased in late twenty nineteen, but that very shortly after that there were early warning signs that he was relapsing.
We know from the evidence in the brief that mister Cauchi had several interactions with Queensland Police officers, including most notably in January twenty twenty three, when Queensland Police were called to mister Couchi's family home following an incident where his father had confiscated a number of knives that were a similar style to that used by mister Couci on
thirteen April twenty twenty four. Mister Couchi's father was worried about him having those knives, and the court will explore whether that was an opportunity missed for intervention by police, which may have resulted in mister Couchi being re engaged with the mental health system at that time.
She said, by thirteen April twenty twenty four, Cauci.
Was floridly psychotic.
Expert toxicology evidence suggests that Cauci had been using cannabis or marijuana in the days preceding his death. She noted Cauchi had also been a marijuana user when he was first diagnosed with schizophrenia as a young teenager.
I expect the court will hear expert psychiatric evidence that use of cannabis would likely have exacerbated the psychotic symptoms that mister Couchi was experiencing around thirteen April. But conversely, expert evidence is also likely to shed light on the fact that the use of cannabis may be a symptom of schizophrenia or psychosis.
Dwyer said it was hard to discern a specific motive for Couchi's actions, except that he was planning an attack. No on his phone showed active preparations for violence.
On twenty five January twenty twenty four, Couchy.
Wrote call knife sharpener and confirm it doesn't need sharpening for more use.
On February twelve, check out Maul's and also where to run.
Dwyer said none of that explained why he wanted to kill strangers, but that he did have an obsession with death and murder. His browsing history showed bookmarked pages on serial killers and searches about mass stabbing incidents. On the day of the Bondi Junction massacre, he had searched for information concerning the two young men who massacred school children
at Columbine High in Colorado in nineteen ninety nine. Couchi had spent the night before the massacre sleeping either in or near the public toilets at Marubra Beach before going to a storage facility to retrieve his bag containing a large knife.
What those records unequivocally show is a man who was seriously unwell, who was far from home and far from the watchful eye of his parents, who had previously been able to keep him linked in with mental health services over such a long period, from the time that he was a teenager to when he was about thirty six
years of age. His parents had been able to keep him linked in with services while he was living with them, but by twenty twenty four, mister Couci was forty years old, homeless in Sydney, completely detached from the mental health system.
You can follow this ongoing inquest at Vaustralian dot com dot au