Harrowing inquest tries to piece together cafe siege tragedy
An entire city stood frozen in anguish and horror as a man with a sawn-off shotgun and a backpack sprouting wires proclaimed allegiance to Islamic State and trapped 18 hostages inside Sydney’s Lindt Cafe.
For 17 excruciating hours, snipers trained their weapons on the Martin Place cafe and tactical officers stood ready to pounce as negotiators tried in vain to make direct contact with gunman Man Haron Monis.
It wasn’t until Monis, who was out on bail for violent and sexual crimes, executed cafe manager Tori Johnson that police were forced to launch an assault. Officers stormed the cafe and killed Monis in a hail of bullets shortly after 2am on December 16, 2014.
Hostage Katrina Dawson, a barrister and mother of three, was fatally wounded after being hit by at least seven police bullet fragments as she hid under a chair during the bloody shootout.
New South Wales Coroner Michael Barnes, who has presided over a long-running inquest into the fatal siege which called its final witness on Thursday, must now piece together exactly what happened and what could have been done differently.
Two key areas of evidence have emerged as the most embarrassing and controversial for police.
One of the most critical issues revolves around a so-called deliberate action plan (DA) which would have seen police stage a surprise assault on the cafe at a time of their choosing.
Several senior tactical officers argued in favour of launching such an action, but the commanders in overall charge refused to approve the plan, believing it to be too risky. Police were terrified to think Monis was carrying up to four kilograms of explosives in his backpack, which they believed was attached to a ‘‘dead man switch’’ that would detonate if he was killed.
The forward commander who made the fateful call for police to storm the cafe offered a piercing insight into this fear. ‘‘I was sending those police in to die. I stood there with my eyes closed waiting for the shockwaves,’’ he told the inquest.
Leading British terror expert Simon Chesterman, who led a review into the siege, said he would have been ‘‘screaming out’’ for a DA, and argued that NSW police were wrong not to approve the plan.
Instead, police pushed on with a ‘‘contain and negotiate’’ strategy, which they did not deviate from until their hand was finally forced. But police negotiators were hamstrung by a litany of resourcing problems in attempting to achieve a peaceful resolution.
With their specialist negotiations truck off the road, they worked out of a four-wheel drive before being moved to a cramped room inside a leagues club, which became the police forward command post.
The room had no whiteboards, no live feed of the siege and only one phone landline – and negotiators missed calls from hostages, as they were diverted elsewhere in the club when the line was busy.
The primary negotiator had never handled a hostage situation before. His boss worked for more than 30 hours straight and was simultaneously overseeing other high-risk incidents across NSW.
Key demands by Monis – including securing media coverage, organising a meeting with the prime minister and being given an Isis flag – were delayed in reaching top commanders, and none were granted.
Police were also plagued by technical problems which hampered the flow of critical information, including shots fired inside the cafe and sightings of Johnson on his knees.
Officers stormed the cafe from several directions in an ‘‘emergency action’’ after Monis shot Johnson dead.
Families of the slain hostages lobbied hard for the three most senior NSW police during the siege to front the inquest and explain their actions.
All three – Commissioner Andrew Scipione, his deputy Cath Burn, and acting Deputy Commissioner Jeff Loy – denied having operational or decision-making roles, and insisted they gave no orders to their subordinates.
Burn, the state’s head of counter-terrorism, said she left operational decisions to the commanders in charge and never saw fit to intervene. She insisted that she never asked – and was never told – about glaring inadequacies in the high-tech surveillance equipment being used.
One of the key questions to emerge from the inquest is whether police bungled the deadly siege.
There are growing calls for Baird, who bears ultimate responsibility for NSW Police, to explain what he was told during the siege and how such a situation could be handled differently should it occur again.