Years before Westfield, Joel Cauchi started scribbling notes. What he wrote left his mum terrified.

An inquest is currently underway over the mass stabbing spree at Westfield Bondi Junction on April 13, 2024.

Joel Cauchi rampaged through the Eastern Suburbs shopping centre, armed with a 30-centimetre knife on an ordinary Saturday afternoon, indiscriminately stabbing civilians.

Six people were killed — Dawn Singleton, 25, Ashlee Good, 38, Jade Young, 47, Pikria Darchia, 55, Yixuan Cheng, 27 and security guard Faraz Tahir, 30 — and 10 others, including a nine-month-old girl, were injured before the 40-year-old was shot dead by police.

On April 28, a five-week-long inquest into the attack commenced in Sydney's west. Here's everything we've learnt so far.

Killer's mum concerned over 'Satanic' notes.

Cauchi was encouraged by his father to avoid anti-psychotic medication years before the Bondi Junction tragedy.

Evidence presented to the inquest reveals that in late 2019, Cauchi's father told mental health professionals his son didn't need to restart anti-psychotics after being weaned off them months earlier.

"Information given to his father, who became adamant that he did not want his son to go on medication as it will kill him," a nurse's note from the time read.

The court was told Cauchi's father told health workers that "he himself had been traumatised by demons when awake and hears voices and is not on medication."

Image: Facebook.

This stance created significant conflict within the family, as Cauchi's mother, Michele, actively wanted him to resume medication after noticing concerning changes in his behaviour.

At the time, his psychiatrist wanted to restart the anti-psychotics in response to his mother's feedback about his deteriorating mental state.

Cauchi's mother first raised concerns about her son's worsening symptoms in October 2019, just three months after he was weaned off the medication.

Despite appearing stable during appointments, concerning signs of relapse emerged, according to testimony from a mental health nurse who treated Cauchi between 2019 and 2020.

These warning signs included extreme obsessive-compulsive behaviours, such as using half a cake of soap in a single shower, large numbers of concerning notes scattered throughout his apartment and writings about being under "Satanic control" and religious themes his mother discovered.

Michele Cauchi spoke to media in the days after the attack. Image: Nine News.

These warning signs prompted Cauchi's mother to write to the centre.

"I know you thought that it wasn't having any effect, but I have noticed a gradual decline in his condition," she wrote in November 2019.

"I have a feeling he is now hearing voices.

"I would hate to see him have to go back into hospital after 20 years of being stable on medication. I would love to see him being able to live successfully, independently, and doing as well as he was a year ago when he first moved out of home."

Sydney Morning Herald reported that Michele Cauchi also told one of the centre's nurses about her son's notes.

Yet despite these red flags, the nurse said Cauchi continued to present well during face-to-face appointments and phone consultations, creating a misleading picture of his actual mental state.

There was no discussion in early 2020 about ensuring Cauchi maintained treatment after relocating to Brisbane.

As he left Toowoomba and was discharged from the clinic, he became completely disconnected from the mental health system — precisely as the COVID-19 pandemic began to grip the world.

Paramedics were left waiting outside.

Critical care paramedic Christopher Wilkinson told the court paramedics were told to remain outside the shopping centre due to a "confused" conversation that suggested there was a second attacker.

The discussion with a police officer led him to believe the centre had been declared a "hot zone", which meant paramedics couldn't enter and provide life-saving assistance to injured people.

Paramedics were prevented from entering the centre after a critically injured security guard, Faraz Tahir, was brought out.

"I was left wondering whether there were any other patients like Mr Tahir," Mr Wilkinson said.

Wilkinson and his colleagues performed emergency surgery on Tahir on the side of the road. The 30-year-old did not survive.

Floral tributes during the re-opening of the Westfield Bondi Junction. Image: Getty.

Wilkinson told the court he was "quite frustrated that people may well be dying upstairs and no one is doing anything medically for them."

"When Dawn Singleton was stabbed, she asked the bystander to ring the ambulance," he said, per The Sydney Morning Herald.

"There's an expectation that an ambulance will arrive."

Mr Wilkinson, who has more than 40 years of experience as a paramedic and has been trained in dealing with mass-casualty events, said lives were lost when emergency services did not communicate effectively.

There were opportunities for improvement, he said, adding that paramedics did the best they could in a difficult situation.

"At Bondi, it made me very proud to be a paramedic," Mr Wilkinson said.

The declaration of a hot zone had no impact on the clinical outcome of any of the stabbing victims, the inquest was told.

Amy Scott felt she was 'going to die'.

Inspector Amy Scott detailed her 85 seconds inside the Westfield shopping centre as she tracked down Cauchi on April 13, 2024.

"I actually felt nauseous as I ran in," she told the NSW Coroners Court on Tuesday. "Because in my head, I resigned myself to the fact I was probably going to die."

Inspector Amy Scott. Image: AAP.

As the first police officer on the scene, she found crowds of panicked shoppers streaming out of the complex in eastern Sydney, some imploring her to help.

"People started saying to me, 'He's killing people, you've got to help us,'" she said.

"It changed my response immediately… I just had to go in."

Finding Cauchi with the help of two tradies, later dubbed "the bollard men," Inspector Scott quietly told nearby civilians to get behind her or safely out of range of ricocheting bullets.

She then fired her pistol, 85 seconds after entering the centre and as Cauchi ran at her with his knife.

"What was going through your mind when you fired the first shot?" Peggy Dwyer SC asked.

"That he was going to kill me," Insp Scott replied.

Cauchi died at the scene.

The court was previously told Cauchi had been diagnosed with schizophrenia as a teen and had been successfully treated until 2019 when he stopped his medication.

The inquest continues.

More to come.

— with AAP.

Feature image: Nine News.