A triple-zero call made by a security control room operator on duty at Westfield Bondi Junction was made too late and was so unclear it risked confusing police into thinking there was another attacker armed with a gun still at large inside the shopping centre, a counter-terrorism expert has said.
The security officer, who cannot be named, had left the control room for a toilet break when Joel Cauchi, 40, launched his stabbing attack that killed six people and injured 10 others at the Sydney shopping centre in April 2024.
When the guard did return to the control room, she did not respond in a timely manner as the attack unfolded, Scott Wilson, a British counter-terrorism expert, told an inquest into the deaths.
Wilson said the officer may have been confused about whether she needed to wait for permission from a supervisor before engaging in emergency protocols, including calling police.
A recording of the security officer’s triple-zero call was played to the inquest on Monday. The officer made the call approximately three minutes after Cauchi began his attack, but was placed on hold and did not speak with police for around six more minutes, by which time Cauchi had been shot dead by NSW police inspector Amy Scott.
In the call, the officer can be heard telling police there have been “shots fired” at the Westfield Bondi Junction.
Asked if there are injuries, she replies: “We’re not aware, we’re just evacuating the centre as quickly as we can.” Later in the call, she adds: “So I was just informed that we’ve got three to four injuries and two stabbings” and “the police are doing CPR on someone on level five”.
Wilson called this response “inadequate”, especially given that by the time she made the call, police were already on the scene and Cauchi had been killed.
“If that had been relayed in the first minute, then she’s going to have very little knowledge. But this was 10 minutes after the start of the attack. If I was the police operator there, I would assume … there’s an armed offender with a gun shooting people in there. She talks about shots being fired with an armed offender.
“If you’re taking that call, you may think it’s not a knife attack at all. It’s a gun attack … which is really dangerous.”
Wilson said that while the “mixed up” call was not likely to have had an impact on the outcome of the event, “it could have done, because the police know that the single offender has been shot, and then you’re getting a phone call five minutes later when somebody’s talking about shots have been fired and a suspect at level five”.
Wilson was pushed by lawyers representing Scentre, which owns and operates the Westfield shopping centre, about whether he was holding the security officer to an “unrealistic standard”.
They said it was a high-pressure, evolving situation, and people don’t know how they would respond in such circumstances until they faced them.
Wilson disagreed, telling the inquest the officer “was not match fit to do that job – she could do the mundane [parts] but she couldn’t step up under pressure”.
He praised a fellow security guard, who acted quickly and decisively when he joined the first officer in the control room, and said “[he] was meeting that standard, if he had been in that room from the beginning, you would have had a different reaction and a different outcome”. Wilson clarified it would not have been “a totally different outcome”.
Wilson praised the response of NSW police, in particular the calm actions of Scott.
“To get the number of police there, in a city as large as Sydney, with the congestion there is in a major city, to get a police officer to that scene in the time they did and to neutralise that threat within that time is hugely impressive,” the counter-terrorism expert said.
He was critical of the “hot zone” designation after the site had been evacuated.
This was put in place at Bondi Junction after concerns were raised there could be a second offender at large inside the shopping centre, the inquest was told in late April. The designation prevented paramedics from entering the Westfield.
“They’ve rescued everyone from the centre and declared it hot, which makes no sense at all. If it was hot 10 minutes before, they shouldn’t have been in there.
“The only time that premises was a hot zone was when Amy Scott had run into that premises … soon as Amy Scott shoots him, it’s warm heading to cold.”
Wilson said that while the declaration of the site as a “hot zone” likely didn’t have a material effect on the outcome for survivors, it could have had an impact if the number of casualties had been greater.
“If you’d had 40 or 50 casualties inside and if you went to a hot zone at that time, people would have died,” he told the court on Monday.
Wilson earlier questioned why the security guard remained in the CCTV room instead of being replaced by someone more competent as the emergency unfolded.
Deficiencies in her knowledge had previously been flagged and further training scheduled, the inquest has heard.
“If you’ve not got faith in her, why leave her in that room?” Wilson told the inquest.
He acknowledged changes in procedures made after the incident by Scentre Group which runs the Bondi Junction Westfield.
Two people must now remain in the control room at all times and officers do not need authorisation from superiors before calling triple zero in an emergency.
Cauchi was experiencing psychotic symptoms at the time of his stabbing spree after being diagnosed with schizophrenia as a teenager.
He had been successfully treated with antipsychotics for decades before his private psychiatrist formed a plan to wean him off the medication, the inquest previously heard.
By mid-2019, he was not taking medication and by early 2020 he had stopped seeing a psychiatrist regularly after moving from Toowoomba to Brisbane. The inquest continues.
Additional reporting by Australian Associated Press
• This article was amended on 19 May 2025. A previous version incorrectly stated that the security officer’s call was not made until 10 minutes after Joel Cauchi’s attack began.
