Murder detective suspected Monis was gunman within hours of Sydney siege
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Version 0 of 1. A policewoman who had been investigating Man Haron Monis over a murder suspected within three hours of the Sydney siege commencing that Monis was the Lindt cafe gunman, an inquest has heard. Detective senior constable Melanie Staples told the New South Wales coroner’s court on Thursday she quickly passed along an intelligence file, including photographs, to “siege headquarters”. Staples said “it was shortly before midday” on 15 December 2014 when she first thought Monis, who was facing trial as an accessory to murder, could be the gunman. “I reported my suspicions directly to the commander at the homicide squad, that I believed it was Monis at the cafe,” she said. She produced a dossier within the hour, featuring a psychological profile and details about his past convictions, including those for sending offensive letters to the families of deceased soldiers. Monis’s identity was revealed to the public shortly before 1am on 16 December, and he was killed about an hour later after police stormed the cafe. Two hostages, Tori Johnson and Katrina Dawson, also died in the siege. The inquest heard that after Monis was granted bail in December 2013 on the murder charges, Staples produced a letter to the Director of Public Prosecutions outlining why his liberty should be revoked. Unbeknown to Staples, the letter was never sent, and she did not raise her concerns in subsequent meetings with the DPP. “I was of the understanding that a letter seeking a bail review had gone from the police to the DPP and my assumption, rightly or wrongly, was that if it had been received then consideration had been given to that,” she said. “I assumed, again rightly or wrongly, that a decision had been made not to [heed the letter].” The fact the letter was never passed on is one of a litany of errors highlighted during the inquest that may have contributed to Monis being free on bail in December 2014. Police have suggested that the DPP solicitor who opposed Monis’s bail application in late 2013 did “a terrible job”, but Staples was less critical on Thursday. “[Their] submissions concerning the facts on Mr Monis were good. [They] presented … the salient points of the crown case,” she said. In addition, the magistrate had not been receptive to the DPP’s arguments that Monis should not be granted bail, “rejecting whole aspects of the case”, she said. But she added: “In my opinion there were further things that could have been put before the court during that hearing.” The inquest heard Staples had been furious after Monis was granted bail, refusing to speak or make eye contact with the DPP solicitor, whose name has been suppressed. Also on Thursday, the state coroner Michael Barnes ruled that six documents, including some outlining perceived errors with the way the DPP had handled Monis’s case, would not be examined by the inquest. The decision went against a submission by barristers for Johnson’s family, who argued the details were necessary or else lawyers would be interrogating police and DPP witnesses “with hands tied behind our backs”. The inquest continues. |