Police were not immediately sent to Christchurch’s Linwood Islamic Centre on the day of the terror attack, despite being told the mosque was a potential target during an emergency call, an inquest has heard.
A parliamentary staffer made the 111 call to police at 1.40 pm, just one minute after receiving an email with the terrorist’s manifesto, which had been forwarded by another staffer in the Prime Minister’s Office on 15 March 2019.
The coronial inquiry heard the police communications centre call-taker’s event log shows they wrote down “Linwood Mosque is potential danger” at 1.45 pm but the information did not result in police being sent straight to the mosque.
The Linwood Islamic Centre attack began at 1.53 pm, resulting in seven of the 51 deaths.
The parliamentary staffer scanned the manifesto during the call and picked out information including the terrorist’s name, age, weapon he was intending to use and location of the attack, which ultimately resulted in the murder of 51 people at the Al Noor and Linwood mosques.
The staffer also told the call-taker that he thought the email had come from “just a nutter” and later said the more he read it, the more it appeared to be a “crank”.
Inspector Ian Harris, the national operations manager for the police communication centres at the time of the attack, denied a lack of action by police under cross-examination by counsel assisting the coroner, David Boldt.
Boldt questioned Harris about how seriously the parliamentary staffer’s call was treated by police, and if it was “even worse” they believed the threat was genuine and still did not take action.
Harris said: “Again, I think there will be other evidence that will say that there was action taken”.
David Boldt. Photo / George Heard
Boldt said: “But it didn’t involve sending police to the Linwood Islamic Centre to protect the people from the terrorist, who you had been informed was going there”.
“Unfortunately no,” Harris replied.
Boldt continued: “So it might have generated some internal action within south comms but it didn’t generate any action that was of any use to the worshippers at the Islamic Centre”.
Harris replied: “It certainly didn’t prevent the terrible atrocities that occurred there but there was action that was taken”.
He confirmed the call-taker was relatively inexperienced and was being mentored on the day of the attack, which included a supervisor listening in to the call and checking the decisions made as to what the call was coded as.
A police officer keeps watch at the Al Noor Mosque in Christchurch on the first anniversary of the terror attacks. Photo / Mark Mitchell
The court earlier heard the emergency call was categorised as “priority 2″, meaning it was virtually lost as other calls about the mass shooting were listed as “priority 1″.
Harris told the court the parliamentary staffer’s call was properly coded as “Natsec [national security] priority 2″.
Boldt read out some evidence from experts to Harris, which will be further discussed later in the inquest, who concluded that the call had been mislabelled as a priority 2 call when it should have been priority 1.
Harris said he respected the expertise but disagreed the call was mislabelled.
In hindsight, he said it “absolutely” should have been upgraded to a priority 1 call but the fact that it was not was “not necessarily a mistake”.
On Wednesday, Harris told the court some “significant” changes had been made to the way police communication centres worked - and it was partly because of the terrorist attack.
Any Natsec event was to now be entered as a priority 1 and there had been “significant” training and upskilling about hate crime.
The inquest will examine the following 10 issues over the next six weeks:
The events of 15 March 2019 from the commencement of the attack until the terrorist’s formal interview by police
The response times and entry processes of police and ambulance officers at each mosque
The triage and medical response at each mosque
The steps that were taken to apprehend the offender
The role of, and processes undertaken by, Christchurch Hospital in responding to the attack
Co-ordination between emergency services and first responders
Whether the terrorist had any direct assistance from any other person on 15 March 2019
If raised by immediate family, and to the extent it can be ascertained, the final movements and time of death for each of the deceased
The cause of death for each of the victims and whether any deaths could have been avoided
Whether the Al Noor Mosque’s emergency exit door in the southeast corner of the main prayer room failed to function during the attack and, if so, why?
