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Bondi Junction killer’s psychiatrist ‘failed to spot psychosis’ · The Front

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  Speaker 1: Today's biggest News from The Australian Unclaire Harvey with the
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Front's afternoon headlines. It was a stabbing rampage that shook
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  Speaker 1: Australia in twenty twenty four. Joel Couchy, in an acute psychosis,
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  Speaker 1: stabbed to death six people in Bondi Junction, Westfield shopping
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  Speaker 1: mall in Sydney and injured another ten, including a baby.
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  Speaker 1: Couchy was shot dead at the scene by Amy Scott,
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  Speaker 1: a police inspector, who sprinted towards him and ended the
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  Speaker 1: carnage after just five and a half minutes. Over the
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  Speaker 1: past year, a coronial inquest has heard about the circumstances
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  Speaker 1: of the day and the time leading up when Couchi
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  Speaker 1: was sleeping rough and experiencing severe mental health problems. On Thursday,
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  Speaker 1: Amy Scott, who is now fighting an aggressive form of
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  Speaker 1: breast cancer and was wearing a brightly colored headscarf, appeared
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  Speaker 1: at the Coroner's Court in Sydney to hear the recommendations
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  Speaker 1: by Coroner Teresa O'Sullivan. Also there were the families of
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  Speaker 1: Couchi's victims, shoppers Dawn Singleton, Yijuan Cheng, Ashley Good, Jade
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  Speaker 1: Young and Picreadacia plus security guard faraz akhmed Tahir, who
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  Speaker 1: was on his first day of work at the mall.
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  Speaker 1: O'Sullivan said she would refer j Old Couchi's psychiatrist, doctor
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  Speaker 1: Andrea Boroslovak, to the Queensland Health onwardsman O'Sullivan found the
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  Speaker 1: doctor failed to identify the risk posed by Couci as
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  Speaker 1: he relapsed into psychosis at the end of twenty nineteen.
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  Speaker 1: She had been treating Cauchi for schizophrenia, which had been
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  Speaker 1: resistant to treatment. The coroner said Couci had exemplary compassionate
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  Speaker 1: treatment from twenty twelve to twenty nineteen. On the day
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  Speaker 1: of the massacre, he was homeless and unmedicated, having been
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  Speaker 1: taken off his drugs by the doctor. His mother reported
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  Speaker 1: he may have been hearing voices and was making notes,
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  Speaker 1: believing he was under Satanic control. The doctor initially gave
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  Speaker 1: him a prescription for medications, but then decided the symptoms
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  Speaker 1: could be a result of concern he may have contracted
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  Speaker 1: a sexually transmitted infection. The coroner said it was a
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  Speaker 1: major failing that the doctor didn't believe he was experiencing
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  Speaker 1: a relapse. O'Sullivan said doctor Boroslovak ultimately failed to take
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  Speaker 1: more proactive action or to recognize the seriousness of the situation.
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  Speaker 1: She said. The doctor wrote a wholly unsatisfactory letter to
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  Speaker 1: Couci's general practitioner. During the inquest, doctor Boroslovak initially told
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  Speaker 1: the court she believed Couci was not experiencing psychosis, but
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  Speaker 1: was fueled by hatred towards women and sexual frustration. She
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  Speaker 1: later withdrew those suggestions. An expert psychiatric panel who provided
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  Speaker 1: a submission to the inquest said Couci was suffering an
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  Speaker 1: acute episode of psychosis. The coroner said the psychiatrist's failings
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  Speaker 1: could not be seen as a major reason for the massacre,
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  Speaker 1: but that it was part of a matrix and only
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  Speaker 1: one of the factors that led to the deaths. The
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  Speaker 1: findings of the inquest are detailed and wide ranging, and
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  Speaker 1: we're covering them live right now at the Australian dot
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  Speaker 1: com dot au plus. Come back to the front first
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: thing in the morning for a story that's blowing up
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  Speaker 1: all over the world, the latest dump of the Epstein
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  Speaker 1: files and what they reveal about Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, his
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  Speaker 1: ex wife, Sarah Ferguson and UK politician Peter Mandelson, who's
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  Speaker 1: now being investigated by police and is causing a nightmare
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  Speaker 1: for British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. That story right here
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: Friday morning,