Bondi attacker identified as police urge witnesses to come forward
Six people have been killed as well as the attacker and another 12 remain in hospital after a mass stabbing incident in Sydney's east on April 13.
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NewsTranscript
00:00 Good morning all. As was reported last night I can confirm that as a result of the incident
00:11 at Bondi last night we have six victims deceased, five women and one man and of course the offender.
00:23 We are working through the process now of speaking with the families and supporting
00:29 the families of those victims, two of whom would appear to have no family in Australia
00:38 so we are working through and with agencies overseas to attempt to reach out to the families
00:48 of those victims. As has also been reported we have a number of people remaining in hospital
00:55 being treated for their injuries. We know many are in a serious but stable condition,
01:04 in particular a young child remains in a serious but stable condition in hospital and our thoughts
01:13 obviously are also with those people and their families and we will certainly be also supporting
01:19 the families of those people who are injured. We know also that a range of people from the
01:25 incident yesterday reported, left the scene obviously and reported. We had a couple present
01:34 to a medical centre who were slightly injured so there are a range of people in unknowns
01:43 if you would like and so in relation to that I would ask very clearly that this was a terrible
01:51 scene. There were many people present at the time and I would ask that anybody who has
01:58 any information or was in fact caught up in the incidents yesterday to make themselves
02:05 known to us, to come forward so that we can speak with you and provide whatever support
02:11 it is that you might require. There are also people who were witnesses to the scene, to
02:18 the incident who have not come forward, who are not known to us and I would reach out
02:23 to those people to please make yourself known to us. In the first instance you can ring
02:29 Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 and we will ensure that you are contacted and that we
02:37 can provide what support it is that you may require but also we are very keen obviously
02:43 to hear from you in terms of what it is that you may have seen at the time. Equally anyone
02:49 who might possess footage we would also be very keen to receive that. Again if you could
02:55 reach out through Crime Stoppers we can make arrangements to speak with you and get that
03:01 footage from you. We briefed last night to the extent that we believe we were aware of
03:09 the offender involved. I can tell you that a 40 year old man from Queensland, Joel Couchie,
03:15 has been identified as the offender in this matter. We are continuing investigations in
03:22 relation to him. He is a man as I said from Queensland. We believe he came to New South
03:28 Wales last month. We are and have spoken with his family, will continue to do so and they
03:35 are cooperating with us. We know that shortly after coming to Sydney he took possession
03:43 of a storage facility that has been identified and we have worked through that very small
03:49 storage facility. As I had said last night there is still to this point nothing that
03:58 we have, no information we have received, no evidence we have recovered, no intelligence
04:03 that we have gathered that would suggest that this was driven by any particular motivation,
04:10 ideology or otherwise. We know that the offender in the matter suffers from mental health.
04:20 We are continuing to work through the profiling of the offender but very clearly to us at
04:27 this stage it would appear that this is related to the mental health of the individual involved.
04:37 Investigations will very clearly continue through the day. Work continues at the crime
04:42 scene. We understand that there are people who were present and may have property or
04:49 belongings at the scene. We will make arrangements promptly to ensure that people are advised
04:58 how they can go about retrieving whatever that might be including for example motor
05:03 vehicles. But as you would understand it is absolutely necessary that we do what is necessary
05:12 to ensure that we provide a detailed and precise brief of evidence in relation to this incident
05:19 which has occurred yesterday.
05:22 [BLANK_AUDIO]