Psychiatrist claims ‘no error’ in treating mall killer
Miklos Bolza |
A psychiatrist who treated the Bondi Junction shopping centre attacker has denied any failings despite weaning him off antipsychotics years before the killings.
Joel Cauchi, 40, armed himself with a pigging knife in April 2024 when he fatally stabbed six shoppers at Sydney’s Westfield Bondi Junction and injured 10 others.
A psychiatrist who had treated him in Queensland testified at an inquest into the tragedy on Tuesday, saying Cauchi had never been psychotic after she helped him stop his medication in mid-2019.
“What would you say to the suggestion that you refuse to accept that Joel was psychotic on the 13th of April (2024) because you don’t want to accept yourself the failings in your care of Joel?” counsel assisting Peggy Dwyer SC asked.
“I did not fail in the care of Joel. I refuse – I have no error on my behalf,” the psychiatrist said.
After Cauchi was weaned off two antipsychotic drugs in July 2019, his mother contacted the psychiatrist’s private clinic seven times raising concerns about possible signs of relapse.
This included that he was leaving notes around the house about Satanic control, experiencing extreme obsessive-compulsive disorder and was not sleeping well.
Cauchi also sent an email saying that he had developed an obsession with pornography, the NSW Coroners Court was told.
The psychiatrist – who cannot be legally named – said these were viewed as possible signs of a early relapse but later assessments found that he was not psychotic.
Cauchi was having trouble sleeping because he was up watching pornography, she said.
His other symptoms stemmed from stressors including a fear he had caught an STD after sleeping with a prostitute, the coroner heard.
Expert psychiatric evidence filed in the inquest has said Cauchi was “floridly psychotic” at the time of the Bondi Junction attack.
However, the psychiatrist also rejected this.
She said Cauchi could not have organised the stabbing spree if he was experiencing symptoms of schizophrenia as this was something he was mentally unable to do.
“It might have been to do with frustration, sexual frustration, pornography and hatred towards women,” she said.
“That is my opinion.”
Earlier in the inquest, the officer-in-charge of the police investigation Detective Chief Inspector Andrew Marks said Cauchi did not appear to be targeting women during the attack.
On Tuesday, the psychiatrist told the court there would not be any difference if Cauchi had taken antipsychotic medication after July 2019.
She testified she had never seen Joel “acutely unwell” nor any signs of “any relapse (or) any issues of safety”.
The psychiatrist grew irritated with Dr Dwyer’s questions around her initial diagnosis of Cauchi in 2012, telling her to “move on”.
She insisted she believed he had first-episode schizophrenia, rather than chronic schizophrenia, because he had remained symptom-free while medicated.
But a 2012 letter discharging Cauchi from the public system – which was shown to the court – appeared to contradict this.
“It appears that Joel may appear to experience some positive symptoms with fluctuating severity,” it read.
“However Joel denies such symptoms.”
Discharging Cauchi to his Toowoomba general practitioner after he relocated to Brisbane, the psychiatrist said there was nothing she could do to follow up.
Dr Dwyer suggested she could have made a phone call.
“You could have done that, you just couldn’t charge for it,” Dr Dwyer said.
The psychiatrist accepted this.
She earlier issued a tearful apology to the families of the victims, Cauchi and those affected by the attacks.
Her life and health had also been personally impacted by the incident, she said.
Cauchi had been diagnosed with schizophrenia as a teen but was successfully treated for decades.
In early 2020, near the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, he moved to Brisbane when he was completely cut off from psychiatric care.
His rampage at the Westfield shopping centre in 2024 was brought to an end after he was shot dead by NSW Police Inspector Amy Scott.
The hearing continues on Wednesday.
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AAP
