The head of the company providing security to Westfield Bondi Junction in Sydney scrambled to buy stab-resistant vests after six people were fatally stabbed, including a member of the security team.
Joel Cauchi, 40, killed Ashlee Good, 38, Jade Young, 47, Yixuan Cheng, 27, Pikria Darchia, 55, Dawn Singleton, 25, and security guard Faraz Tahir, 30, and injured 10 others at Bondi Junction Westfield on 13 April 2024 before he was shot and killed by police officer Amy Scott.
In the final week of the five-week inquest into the deaths, the New South Wales coroner’s court also heard that some Glad Group employees had not returned to work after the incident and that the company had traditionally struggled to recruit and retain control room guards.
Steve Iloski, the CEO of Glad Group, which provides security personnel to Westfield Bondi Junction and to other Scentre Group shopping centres in NSW, said on Monday he made a number of phone calls to buy 27 stab-proof vests from a number of different suppliers after the incident.
Before the attack, the protective vests – which are not required by law – had not been considered for the security guards at Westfield Bondi Junction.
“Bondi was a low-risk centre,” Iloski said.
Since the attack, all Glad Group security staff at Scentre Group centres and a number of other sites now wear the vests “as uniform”, he said.
Iloski said that he was supportive of changing NSW guidelines to mandate the use of stab-proof vests for security guards.
He accepted a number of criticisms of the security team response on the day, including that the lack of a control room operator at the time of the incident adversely affected the timeliness of the response.
He said Glad Group was behind CR1 – the control room operator whose performance was criticised and whose name cannot be published for legal reasons – and all of the staff on duty that day.
Both CR1 and CR2 – another guard whose name cannot be published – as well as some other guards, had not returned to work since the attack. They are receiving counselling and financial and health support.
“It is important to reflect on the courage of a group of individuals who simply went to work that day,” Iloski said.
Speaking about Tahir’s murder, Iloski said: “I can confidently say that his loss and sacrifice have been felt deeply across Glad Group and the entire security industry.”
The Tahir family heard from other people that Tahir had been killed before they heard from NSW police, said the family’s barrister, Lester Fernandez SC.
Murtaza Manzoor, the CEO of Falcon Manpower Solutions Pty Ltd, a security subcontractor of Glad Group, said a security guard’s job was to keep themself safe and pass on information.
The “basic rule of security” was to not “put yourself in the face of danger”, he said.
Manzoor said the new stab-proof vests had not been wholly popular with his security staff.
“They don’t like it, it’s too heavy,” Manzoor said. “But now they are used to it, the complaints are going down.”
Earlier on Monday, counsel assisting the coroner, Emma Sullivan, said Scott’s actions on the day were “entirely justified and appropriate” and that she “demonstrated extraordinary courage and situational awareness … in the most stressful of circumstances”.
She “acted with exceptional bravery and skill and saved lives”, the court heard.
The NSW police senior sergeant William Watt, who oversees non-specialist police training, agreed “wholeheartedly”.
“Her situational awareness, particularly about risk … is well beyond most police I’ve ever seen, given the circumstances that confronted her,” he said.
The court heard there was a heavy burden on first responders in active armed offender incidents, given the consequences of discharging a firearm.
Citing figures from Texas State University’s Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training centre, Watt said that in more than 50% of active armed offender incidents, police exchanged gunfire with the offender, and in more than 20%, they suffered casualties.
“So inspector Scott’s fear was well justified,” Sullivan said.
The police force was upgrading body armour and “go bags” and giving consideration to new radios for use in noisy environments, Watt said. Witnesses have recalled the Westfield Bondi Junction emergency alarm being extremely loud, hindering communications in the immediate aftermath of the incident.
The inquest continues.
