The parents of Joel Cauchi, the man responsible for the deaths of six people in Bondi Junction over the weekend, have apologised to the nation for what their son did.
On Saturday afternoon, Joel Cauchi entered the Westfield shopping centre in Sydney’s east and stabbed multiple people with a knife. Six people died – five women and one man – while many others remain in hospital, including a nine-month-old baby.
Speaking on ABC’s news program 7:30 last night, Joel Cauchi’s father, Andrew Cauchi, said his son, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia when he was 17, was a “tormented soul”.
“He was a tormented soul, tormented and frustrated,” he said, “and I’m sorry that he’s done this to your children and this nation.
“There’s nothing I can say, there is nothing I can say that will take away the pain that my son has caused.”
Joel’s mother, Michele, was heartbroken about what happened in Bondi Junction on Saturday.
“This is a parent’s absolute nightmare when they have a child with mental illness, that something like this would happen, and my heart goes out to the people my son has hurt,” Michele told 7:30.
“If he was in his right mind he would be absolutely devastated at what he has done, but he obviously was not in his right mind, he had been triggered into some kind of psychosis and lost touch with reality.”
Joel Cauchi moved out of the family home in Toowoomba, Queensland, when he was 35 years old. Before then, he was receiving regular treatment for schizophrenia.
Andrew Cauchi said Joel moved back to Toowoomba from Brisbane in January 2023, bringing several knives with him. Joel’s father seized the knives and removed them from his possession.
“I found these US Army combat knives and I said ‘Joel you can stay here as long as you like but you are not going to have these in my house’, and so I took them off him, knowing that there was going to be pandemonium, but I was willing to put up with it,” Andrew Cauchi told 7:30.
On Saturday night, Andrew and Michele identified their son in footage that emerged from Bondi Junction after the attack. They tipped off NSW police that the man responsible for the attacks was Joel.
“The police then knocked on my door that night to tell us they believe this is Joel, and I said ‘you don’t have to believe it, you can know it’,” Andrew told 7:30.
Australian police officer Amy Scott was the first responder to the scene at Bondi Junction on Saturday and has been given high praise following the tragedy. As Inspector Scott was performing routine checks in the shopping centre, she bravely chased Joel Cauchi through the mall.
According to reports, Cauchi lunged at her with his knife before Inspector Scott shot him down. She began to administer CPR, but he died at the scene.
Joel Cauchi’s father Andrew assured that he had no “ill feelings” toward Inspector Scott for what she did.
“If I was in her uniform, and this wasn’t my son … and he runs at me with a knife, I’d have to do the same thing she did,” Andrew told 7:30.
“We have no ill feelings towards her because she was doing her job and she did a wonderful job, even though it was my son.
“I mean, how I can stand here and say that she did a wonderful job killing my son, I don’t know, but she did her job and she did it well.”