Inquest Into the Deaths Arising from the Lindt Café Siege
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Inquest into the deaths arising from the Lindt Café siege Opening address for siege segment Jeremy Gormly SC, Jason Downing and Sophie Callan 21-22 March 2016 2 Inquest into the deaths arising from the Lindt Café siege Opening Address for Siege Segment (4 th Segment) – 21 and 22 March 2016 INTRODUCTION [Gormly SC] ........................................................................................ 4 COMMENCEMENT OF THE SIEGE ....................................................................................... 5 Monis enters Lindt Café ........................................................................................................... 5 Layout of café and arrival of other hostages ............................................................................. 8 Doors are locked and Tori Johnson’s 000 call .......................................................................... 13 The Hostages - Comment ....................................................................................................... 16 The siege is declared .............................................................................................................. 18 The first police to attend ........................................................................................................ 20 The Monis plan ...................................................................................................................... 22 THE EARLY POLICE RESPONSE [Downing] ..................................................................... 34 BACK INSIDE THE CAFÉ ................................................................................................... 37 MORNING POLICE COMMAND RESPONSE ....................................................................... 42 Initial POC and Forward Command Post ................................................................................. 42 Attendance of Tactical Operations Unit and Snipers ................................................................ 44 Negotiators ............................................................................................................................ 47 Public Interest Immunity ........................................................................................................ 48 Negotiator’s Response - Continued ......................................................................................... 50 Identifying Monis ................................................................................................................... 52 Identifying the Hostages ........................................................................................................ 53 TOU Plans for entry into the cafe ............................................................................................ 54 Counter-Terrorism ................................................................................................................. 57 Intelligence ............................................................................................................................ 60 The Australian Defence Force ................................................................................................. 60 Australian Federal Police ........................................................................................................ 61 SIEGE MANAGEMENT - OVERVIEW ................................................................................. 62 AFTERNOON POLICE COMMAND RESPONSE ................................................................... 64 Further negotiation attempts ................................................................................................. 64 Hostage family reception ....................................................................................................... 66 AFTERNOON EVENTS INSIDE THE CAFÉ ............................................................................ 67 3 The First Hostage Escapes ...................................................................................................... 68 Further negotiator and media contact [Callan] ..................................................................... 72 Next hostage escapes ............................................................................................................. 73 EVENING POLICE COMMAND RESPONSE ......................................................................... 75 Surveillance inside cafe .......................................................................................................... 78 Issues in Relation to Lights ..................................................................................................... 79 Inside the Café, Late Night...................................................................................................... 83 Police Response – Late Night .................................................................................................. 85 INSIDE THE CAFÉ – FINAL HOURS .................................................................................... 87 The Final Hostage Escape ....................................................................................................... 88 THE EMERGENCY ACTION ............................................................................................... 96 Aftermath of Emergency Action – Hostage Removal and Treatment ...................................... 100 Emergency Action – Significant Issues ................................................................................... 104 Family Liaison ...................................................................................................................... 105 EXPERT EVIDENCE – UK REPORT ETC [Gormly SC]....................................................... 107 ISSUES FOR THE INQUEST ............................................................................................. 109 CONCLUDING REMARKS ............................................................................................... 110 4 Opening Address for Siege Segment INTRODUCTION [Gormly SC] 1. The investigation underlying this inquest commenced on 16 December 2014, the day of the deaths. And I note your Honour and Ms Heris the solicitor assisting your Honour visited the crime scene at the Lindt café the following day. 2. The witnesses to give evidence over the next 8 weeks or so will be called in roughly chronological fashion having regard to the events of the night. We commence with the hostages, and then turn to hear from relevant witnesses from NSW Police about the response to the siege. 3. However, for this segment to remain relevant and productive, those assisting your Honour propose to focus the oral evidence on matters which go to the key issues under consideration. The parties have received an updated list of those issues in recent weeks – many of which will be touched upon in this opening. 4. The plan today is to provide an outline of the evidence about the events of the siege. I anticipate this opening will go through to this afternoon and possibly into tomorrow morning. 5. We will show on screen a number of images, pieces of film and sound items. Although they have been carefully selected to minimise distress, we must ultimately call evidence in this case which will assist your Honour to fulfil your statutory functions and to inform the public at large as to what occurred. Some of the material shown during this segment, and indeed later in this opening may be deeply distressing for some, including images which show the blood of 5 Monis and others. On each such occasion we will warn people when such images are to be shown, so as to allow sufficient time for those who wish to avert their eyes or leave the court room so that can occur. COMMENCEMENT OF THE SIEGE Chronology inside café – Limitations 6. I propose to begin with an outline of the evidence about Monis’ commencement of the siege and events inside the café. Before doing so, I should make a preliminary observation that, despite the best efforts of the Police officers investigating the siege and the team of lawyers assisting your Honour, piecing together a precise chronology of events inside the café from the time the siege began through to its end has proven a difficult task. 7. We have the recollections of the various hostages, but for understandable reasons, it was difficult for them to keep track of what was happening at various points in time in the café and equally difficult for them now to recall those events. 8. We do have a number of aides to our understanding of the timing and order of events. We have it through CCTV footage from a number of angles, media footage, particularly from the Channel 7 premises, logs kept by Police, intercepted phone calls, and a surveillance device which was placed at a point in time within the café. 9. Ultimately, through the assimilation of all of the information from those sources, I believe that a fairly accurate and robust chronology has been compiled. Monis enters Lindt Café 10. CCTV cameras capture Man Haron Monis walking up Martin Place toward the Lindt Cafe at approximately 8.26 am on Monday 15 December 2014. It’s really 6 at this point that he was first was captured on a CCTV camera located at the MLC Centre. SHOW It appears that Monis was wearing a backpack. 11. Next, at approximately 8.28 am, Monis was captured on a CCTV camera outside of Tiffany & Co, again walking in an easterly direction. SHOW 12. At approximately 8.32 am, Monis was captured on a CCTV camera walking past 39 Martin