A man who stabbed six weekend shoppers could have been reconnected with mental health support well ahead of the tragedy after a plea by his mother for assistance. 

Joel Cauchi was known to Queensland police for suspected mental health concerns more than a year before he armed himself with a 30-centimetre long knife and launched his unprovoked and deadly mall attack.

Experiencing psychotic symptoms, the 40-year-old killed six people and injured 10 others in Sydney‘s Bondi Junction Westfield on April 13, 2024 before being shot dead by police inspector Amy Scott.

Dawn Singleton, 25, Ashlee Good, 38, Jade Young, 47, Pikria Darchia, 55, Yixuan Cheng, 27 and security guard Faraz Tahir, 30, were killed.

One evening in January 2023, Cauchi called police to his family home in Toowoomba, near Brisbane, after his father Andrew took his collection of knives.

This included a knife that was the exact type used in the mall attack.

At an inquest into the tragedy, body-worn video from a senior constable called to the Toowoomba house was played in the NSW Coroners Court on Monday.

‘My dad has taken some of my property. It’s pretty expensive and he won’t give it back,’ Cauchi says on the roadside outside the home as the officer approaches.

He is seen persistently urging the officer, who cannot be legally named, to talk to his parents and get the knives back right away.

While claiming he would become financially broke or homeless without the knives, Cauchi could not explain why.

As this occurred, a female constable was chatting with the then-39-year-old’s mother Michele who said her son had stopped taking his medication years before and was now believed to be hearing voices.

‘She was asking for help,’ the officer told the court.

Cauchi was a ‘high-functioning’ schizophrenic who had a university degree, could speak two languages and was studying to become an English teacher.

His parents told police attending their home they held concerns for their son’s mental health, including that he had been up at 3am pacing around, banging on the walls and being disruptive.

Michele Cauchi told the officers her husband Andrew took the knives out of concern.

Cauchi was ‘in a rage’ after they were taken, pushing his father and swearing at his mother, police were told. 

In an email sent that night to the Queensland police mental health incident co-ordinator, the more senior officer requested a follow-up.

‘It’s likely we will have further calls for service to the house,’ he wrote. 

‘If a follow-up could be made of the family … that would be great.’

But nothing was organised after an ‘oversight’ meant the email was seen but then forgotten about by a co-ordinator after being called to another job.

Diagnosed with schizophrenia as a teen, Cauchi had been successfully treated for decades through anti-psychotic medication and psychiatric visits.

But by March 2020 he had been completely detached from the mental health system, the court was told earlier.

When asked by police about his mental health at the January 2023 call-out, Cauchi said he felt ‘really good’ and ‘terrific’.

He also said he felt much better since ceasing his medication which he claimed caused numerous side-effects.

Earlier on Monday, the inquest also heard evidence from a Brisbane highway patrol officer who pulled Cauchi over in September 2021 because of ‘erratic driving’.

The leading senior constable, who also cannot be legally named, saw Cauchi ‘brake checking’ his silver Toyota sedan by stopping and starting the vehicle before swerving sharply into the right-hand lane.

He activated lights and sirens before pulling the vehicle over. Cauchi told the officer he did not realise how he was driving.

The officer said when he searched for prior history, he was unaware  there had been a pattern of behaviour with the then 38-year-old pulled over for similar driving twice before.

The inquest before State Coroner Teresa O’Sullivan continues on Tuesday.

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