A policewoman who was praised for her actions in preventing additional casualties during a mass stabbing will provide testimony on her encounter with the attacker at a crowded urban shopping center.
The individual, Joel Cauchi, was exhibiting signs of psychosis when he armed himself with a 30-centimeter long knife and entered the Westfield mall in Sydney’s Bondi Junction on April 13th of the previous year.
He launched an indiscriminate attack, killing six people and injuring 10 others, in a tragedy being examined at a coronial inquest.
Following her testimony, two civilians – commonly reported as the “bollard men” – will give evidence about what they did during the attacks.
Silas Desperaux and Damien Guerot tried to stop Cauchi from harming others in the shopping centre and witnessed him shot dead in front of them.
During the court proceedings, it was mentioned that Cauchi had received a diagnosis of schizophrenia during his teenage years and had been effectively managing his condition until 2019, when he decided to discontinue his medication.
He lived a largely transient life away from the support of his parents in Toowoomba, near Brisbane, and had been homeless when he stepped foot into the Bondi Junction Westfield for the last time.
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