Roger Cook: ‘Potential flags’ may have been missed in Bombara case, public shouldn’t have to wait for answers

Premier Roger Cook has conceded he is concerned “potential flags” to the danger posed by Floreat murderer Mark Bombara were missed by WA Police. He also does not believe West Australians should be forced to wait for the completion of a coroner’s report into the handling of the case — which is likely months away at best — before receiving answers to some of the most pertinent questions in the horrific case. A close second is whether police ever demanded to inspect Bombara’s 13-strong gun collection after they were repeatedly told a Glock handgun — later used to kill Jennifer and Gretl Petelczyc — was “unaccounted for”. Fronting media for the first time since the killer’s daughter, Ariel Bombara, went public with extraordinary claims of police failures, Mr Cook said he empathised with an outraged public. “I think we’ve all got questions about what led to the incidences in Floreat on Friday,” the Premier said. “I think we’ve all got concerns that potential flags were not rasied and not observed.” Police Commissioner Col Blanch has confirmed an internal investigation into his officers’ interactions with Ariel and her mother is already underway, with the findings to be handed to the coroner. In an at times confrontational press conference, Mr Cook was repeatedly pressed on how long it would take to establish whether police had bungled their handling of the warnings and pleas for help from Ariel and her mum. “There’s two issues going on here,” Mr Cook said. “One is the information we can provide to the public in terms of the overall operational issues that the police confronted. “The other is the investigation, formal investigation process, which… will take longer. “But I believe that we will have answers much sooner than (the completion of the internal investigation) in relation to the broad set of circumstances that sat both behind this event, the events leading up to the incident and subsequent to it.” Asked whether he would promise to publicly release those answers as soon as he received them, Mr Cook said we was “committed to be accountable in relation to all these matters”. “We all want answers. Answers to the victims, answers to the victims’ families,” he said. Mr Cook confirmed he was not aware of Ariel and her mum’s request for a temporary protection order when he first faced reporters over the Floreat murders on Monday. At that same press conference, Police Minister Paul Papalia said there was never an application for a family violence restraining order made against Bombara and that in the eyes of police he was “a law-abiding firearms owner right up until (the Floreat murders)“. WA Police issue around 25,000 temporary protection orders every year when they believe there is reasonable grounds a person is at imminent danger of family violence. The orders are often the first step towards applying for a full family violence restraining order – which must be granted by a Magistrate – and involve the automatic confiscation of any firearms. While insisting police were appropriately resourced and trained to handle the 60,000 domestic violence incidents reported in WA every year, Mr Cook said frontline officers were confronted with a “very complex world”. “It’s very easy for me to sort of think they should have made this decision under the circumstances, or should have made that decision under the circumstances,” the Premier said. “I wasn’t there. I wasn’t on the ground, making these decisions. “I’ve got so much admiration and respect for police. When they walk into these situations… they have to balance all these complex issues that are playing out in front of them, sometimes in rapid time.”