Westfield’s global security chief has pushed back against criticism of how guards responded to the Bondi Junction stabbing attack, telling an inquest the company has a “very strong security culture” established by founder Frank Lowy.
John Yates, the director of security at Scentre Group, which operates Westfield malls globally, told theNew South Walescoroners court about his previous career serving as the most senior detective in London’s Metropolitan police from 2007 to 2009.
Yates then worked as the most senior counter-terrorism figure in the UK, including providing protection for the royal family and at Heathrow airport, the inquest was told on Tuesday.
He was questioned about security operations at Westfield Bondi Junction after the inquest previously heard a security officer had left the CCTV control room for a toilet break when Joel Cauchi, 40, launched his stabbing attack that killed six people and injured 10 others in April 2024.
During Monday’s proceedings, a British counter-terrorism expert claimed that even when they returned to the control room, the guard, known as CR1,did not respond in a timely manneras the attack unfolded.
In a triple-zero call played in court,the security officer could be heard telling police there had been “shots fired”.
Asked if there were injuries, she replied: “We’re not aware, we’re just evacuating the centre as quickly as we can.” Later in the call, she added: “So I was just informed that we’ve got three to four injuries and two stabbings” and “the police are doing CPR on someone on level five”.
On Tuesday, Yates told the inquest he thought earlier evidence criticising CR1’s behaviour was “very harsh”.
He suggested it was “unrealistic” to expect security guards – who undergo 80 hours of training and are paid between $26 and $28 per hour – to perform like police, who in NSW attend a residential training college for six months before being paired with a senior officer.
“Their role is to observe, report, escalate ... it’s certainly not to engage [with an attacker],” Yates told the court.
Yates said Scentre Group had a security team, including a small intelligence operation, which monitored physical safety and cybersecurity. He said that was unusual for a shopping centre company and was due to founder Frank Lowy taking security seriously.
“I’d say we have a very strong security culture,” Yates said on Tuesday.
The security chief responded to criticism of the triple-zero call that CR1 made to report the incident that couldhave confused NSW police.
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He said that sitting in the CCTV control room was more complicated than “monitoring a bank of screens” – with only the main exits and entries displayed constantly.
He said there were hundreds of cameras installed across Westfield Bondi Junction and that knowing which camera to bring up to follow a live incident was not straightforward.
“The idea that you can go straight to the right camera and then immediately start to follow, track ... is totally unrealistic,” Yates told the inquest.
In addressing concerns about CR1’s clarity in the triple-zero call, Yates referenced his time at London’s Metropolitan police, and examples of even highly trained professionals making “catastrophic errors”.
Yates brought up theMetropolitan police killing of Brazilian electrician Jean Charles de Menezes– who they suspected to be a terrorist – at Stockwell tube station in the weeks after the 2005 London bombings as an example of “people under pressure making poor decisions”.
Yates defended CR1 as “competent to be in that control room” on the day.
“I think she did the best she could with what she knew herself,” he said. “She undoubtedly struggled on the day,” he conceded, but added it was a “horrible multigenerational event”.
The inquest continues.