Joel Cauchi was a ‘tormented soul’ says his tearful father Andrew after Bondi Junction stabbing

The father of Bondi Junction killer Joel Cauchi has tearfully apologised for the actions of his “tormented” son, saying he too would have shot him dead if he was the police officer responding to the tragedy.

Speaking outside his home in Toowoomba, Queensland, Andrew Cauchi said he was “not really” coping with the aftermath of his 40-year-old son’s actions.

Mr Cauchi’s son stabbed six people to death and injured several more at Bondi Junction Westfield on Saturday afternoon.

The incident is still under police investigation and will be subject to a coronial inquest.

“He was a tormented soul, tormented, and frustrated, and I’m sorry that he’s done this to your children and this nation,” Mr Cauchi, 76, said through tears.

A man with a long grey beard and wearing a hat standing in a yard.

Andrew Cauchi and his wife contacted police after recognising Joel in news footage.(ABC News: Tobi Loftus)

“There’s nothing I can say, there is nothing I can say that will take away the pain that my son has caused.”

Cauchi’s mother, Michele, said her son had been under the care of doctors for about 18 years while receiving treatment for mental illness.

She said he had lived at home until he was 35, at which point he moved to Brisbane and stopped seeing his regular doctor.

Bondi Junction Stabbing Rampage

Flowers have been laid near the scene of the killings at Bondi Junction.(ABC News: Brendan Esposito)

She said he had a loving childhood with lots of friends and they had supported his efforts to finish a degree.

‘A parent’s nightmare’

“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,” Mrs Cauchi said.

“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.”

Mr Cauchi and his wife tipped off NSW police that they believed their son was the attacker as they saw the event unfold on social media and television news.

“My wife said ‘This looks like Joel’ when you saw him on the stairway with his head down, and I said it might look like Joel but I’m not going to say it’s Joel,” Mr Cauchi said.

“So I watched and watched, and I watched until 3 o’clock in the morning.

“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’.”

female police officer image from behind leaning over man lying on shopping centre floor and portrait of female police officer

NSW Police Inspector Amy Scott shot Joel Cauchi after his stabbing spree at Westfield Bondi Junction.(ABC News)

Mr Cauchi said he held no ill feelings to Inspector Amy Scott, who killed Cauchi at the scene, because she was “doing her job”.

“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,” he said.

“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.”

Fixation with knives

Mr Cauchi says it was approximately January, 2023 when his son moved from Brisbane back to Toowoomba, and did so with a number of knives.

When he took those knives from his son, Joel called the police on his father.

“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,” Mr Cauchi said.

“He rang the police saying I stole his knives … I said ‘look I am not having these in my home, I have given them to a mate to look after them’.”

Two police stand in a front yard.

Toowoomba police visited Joel Cauchi’s parents after the Bondi Junction stabbings.(ABC News: Tobi Loftus)

Mr Cauchi said Joel then drove himself across the state border to the NSW town of Tweed Heads and bought another knife, which he said he did not take.

“I had already taken six and it was hassle enough to take those six,” Mr Cauchi said.

Asked why his son needed knives Mr Cauchi said he was unsure but his wife had her own theory.

“My wife said it was probably for self-protection,” he said, before again lamenting his son’s actions through tears..

“I wish I knew what was in his bloody head.

“If I knew what was in his head I would have rung the New South Wales police and said ‘please pick my son up and do something about him before something goes wrong’,” he said.

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