Mothers of Lindt café siege victims blast police for delay
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The grieving mothers of Lindt cafe siege victims Tori Johnson and Katrina Dawson have blasted the New South Wales police for waiting until someone was killed before storming inside.
Rosie Connellan and Jane Dawson are outraged at how the 16-hour standoff at Sydney’s Martin Place was handled in mid-December 2014.
Their displeasure was broadcast on the ABC the night before an inquest was due to deliver the findings into their deaths at the hands of Islamist gunman Man Monis.
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Lindt cafe manager Tori Johnson was shot in the head near the end of a 16-hour siege in 2014
Tori Johnson’s mother Rosie Connellan (pictured) said she could not forgive the police
Ms Connellan, whose cafe manager son Tori Johnson was fatally shot in the head, is upset the police waited for someone to die before storming the city cafe at 2am.
‘I can’t forgive people for that trigger. I’ll never be able to understand how you can make a calculated decision to wait for someone to die,’ she told Four Corners, broadcast on Monday night.
Mr Johnson left behind a long-time partner Thomas Zinn while Katrina Dawson was a wife and mother to three children.
They were the casualties of the siege, which saw 18 people taken hostage at Martin Place in Sydney on the morning of December 15, 2014.
Jane Dawson, whose talented barrister daughter Katrina was killed as police stormed the cafe, was also upset at the poor police response.
Talented barrister Katrina Dawson was killed at the end of a 16-hour siege at the Lindt cafe
Jane Dawson (pictured right with husband Alexander) said the police response was ‘outrageous’
‘It’s outrageous. It’s outrageous. These are people they should be protecting,’ she said, with her husband Alexander by her side.
‘They should be saving them from death or serious injury.’
New South Wales coroner Michael Barnes is due to deliver his inquest findings on Wednesday into the police response to the siege, on December 15 and 16, 2014.
It involved a politically-motivated gunman who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State.
Cafe manager Tori Johnson was shot dead while barrister Katrina Dawson died as police stormed the Sydney cafe at 2am, following a 16-hour standoff.
Islamist gunman Man Monis protesting outside Sydney’s Downing Centre Local Court in 2009, five years before he took 18 people hostage inside the Lindt cafe
Amirah Droudis was found guilty in November 2016 of murdering Man Monis’ ex-wife in 2013
The gunman, who was shot dead by police, had sought political asylum in Australia in 1996 and was granted a visa in 2001.
Four Corners also showed footage of Man Monis in a swimming pool with the children by his ex-wife, who was killed in April 2013.
This woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was set alight and killed by Monis’ Muslim-convert girlfriend Amirah Droudis after he had failed to convince bikies to murder his ex-wife.
She was found guilty of murder in November 2016 in a judge-only trial in the NSW Supreme Court.
The ABC aired footage of Monis having a day out with friends as part of an alibi to convince police he hadn’t killed his ex-wife.
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