The high-profile psychiatrist who told police Man Monis was just “grandstanding” during the Lindt cafe siege has lost his job.
The doctor, whose name has been suppressed, will no longer advise the force after it was revealed his conduct during the 2014 hostage situation may have led police to underestimate the terrorist, according to The Daily Mail.
In his damning report published last month, the NSW coroner Michael Barnes said the psychiatrist grossly misread the situation unfolding inside the cafe when, at 1.50am on December 16, he described the mood as “calm”.
Just 23 minutes later, cafe manager Tori Johnson was shot dead by Man Monis.
“Critical self-reflection seemed absent,” the coroner said in his report.
“On occasions he gave the appearance of being more interested in promoting his opinions and perspectives than in seeking to help the court understand how things had gone wrong or demonstrating empathy for the hostages and the victims’ families."
As the The Daily Telegraph notes, it is not the first time the practitioner's work has been questioned in court.
He was previously criticised for preparing a report on another doctor who drugged and raped a patient based only on the guilty doctor's testimony.
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The father of the second victim from the siege Katrina Dawson also criticised the doctor, recently telling Four Corners he believed the bad advice had grave consequences for the hostages.
“He was supposed to be just an adviser to the negotiators. In fact, it seems that he was a lot more than that,” Sandy Dawson said.
During the inquest, the psychiatrist himself admitted he was not aware of the call by IS two months before the siege for lone-wolf attacks to be carried out in their name, information experts have labelled as game changing.
He will reportedly be barred from a new panel of psychiatrists currently being set up for police will call on for advice in the future.
Top Comments
If they truly thought he was "grandstanding", why did it still take so long to go in there?
Look it's possible the guy is arrogant or incompetent or whatever, but the problem I do have with this whole inquiry is that they are trying to set up everyone involved in that siege as the fall guy and the fact is this is all very fine in hindsight, the best psychiatrist and police force in the world can't read someone's mind, they can't be sure if this guy is going to kill someone or not, they couldn't be sure if he had a bomb, or 50 accomplices etc.
Just as easily the police could have decided to shoot him within the first 5 minutes and then no doubt there would have been inquiry saying that they were "Rambos", "Islamophobes" (for shooting a Muslim) etc. They could also have shot him and turned out that his fake claim of having a bomb and lots of accomplices around the city was actually true and the next thing you know 100 people all getting shot and blown to bits because the police did a "Rambo" and shot him.
The fact is all of these things were unknown. This guy was on bail even though he had 6 billion things against him, so why do the police have to be the fall guy for this, when the legal system etc are also to blame.
Also to blame are all the hard left activists who ensured that none of us were allowed to criticise anyone Muslim, because I recall when Monis was writing letters and on the TV for doing so, if anyone said anything about maybe his behaviour called for more than a slap on the wrist, all the lefties I knew would shout you down as an Islamophobe, which is also why the police and the legal system were probably treating him with kid gloves.
Oh and by the way it is the hard left who want us to bring every Muslim refugee here, but no none of the blame falls on them either.
No it is the police who end up being the fall guy (because someone needs to perform that task) even though they are cleaning up the mess that everyone else makes, and also are constantly at risk of being targeted by these terrorists, but not one single article have I seen anywhere that actually looks at the police's point of view or shows them any empathy whatsoever.
The police aren't perfect and obviously neither was this psychiatrist but you know how many of the armchair observers would do a better job? Or risk their lives without any gratitude.
Because the Police were supposed to be in charge, Police forces all over the world have condemned their response. They don't get to walk away from this, all responsibility no accountability. Time people start holding police responsible for their hypocrisy and incompetence.