Brisbane This article is more than 2 months oldFirebombing death of bus driver in Brisbane could have been avoided with better decisions, coroner finds
This article is more than 2 months oldDecision to discharge ‘low risk’ Anthony O’Donohue from mental health service in 2016 found to be ‘not satisfactory’
The firebombing death of a young bus driver “might not have occurred” if different decisions had been made about the care of the mental health patient who had been deemed “low risk” before killing him, Queensland’s state coroner has found.
Terry Ryan handed down his findings a day before the seventh anniversary of the death of Manmeet Sharma, a 29-year-old from India who had been working as a bus driver for the Brisbane city council for just three months.
Sharma, also known as Manmeet Alisher, was killed on 28 October 2016 when Anthony O’Donohue threw a molotov cocktail full of diesel and petrol at him in the suburb of Moorooka. He suffered burns to 84% of his body and died at the scene.
Ryan found that “the decision to discharge Mr O’Donohue from the mental health service, which took place over a 10-month period leading up to August 2016, was not satisfactory”.
“However, that conclusion is reached with some hesitation knowing the benefit of hindsight,” he said, in releasing his findings on Friday morning.
“Mr Sharma’s death might not have occurred if different decisions had been made at different times in the course of his treatment.”
Despite this, the coroner disagreed with a submission from Sharma’s family, and said he did not think “that it could have been predicted that Mr O’Donohue would have gone on to kill someone”.
Deemed “low risk” by the state mental health system, O’Donohue’s care was gradually downgraded until he was discharged from treatment entirely in August 2016.
But Ryan found he was actually “a very unwell man seemingly obsessed with getting revenge against his perceived persecutors”, including public servants and trade unions. He continued to hold delusions, and expressed persistent suicidal and homicidal ideation, the coroner found.
O’Donohue attempted to reconnect with mental health services as late as 31 August. Ryan found the continuing care team responsible for O’Donohue knew he was socially isolated once discharged, and did not “engage directly” with his GP over fears for his privacy.
He found that risk assessments were “to some extent” hindered by a lack of record sharing between mental health institutions “including his history of violence”.
O’Donohue was charged with murder and 14 counts of attempted murder and arson, but was deemed unfit to stand trial and instead ordered to spend 10 years undertaking mental health treatment, under a forensic order.
Friends and family of Sharma, as well as representatives of the Rail, Tram and Bus Union, expressed frustration and dissatisfaction with the coroner’s findings, in press conferences after the hearing.
Sharma’s friend Winnerjit Singh, who travelled from India, said his family had wanted a single answer from the inquest: who was responsible for the systematic errors that led to his death.
“We are fighting for justice,” he said. “Justice, it’s delayed and it’s denied.
“We are waiting for the last seven years, we are expecting … today, they will say this department or this person is responsible.”
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Ryan made no additional recommendations for bus safety, pointing to a Brisbane city council program to install security screens for drivers, hire additional security guards and improve exits, among other reforms.
“The AusSafe report commissioned by council identified that the death of Mr Sharma was an isolated, extreme and rare event. It was unprecedented in the history of public transport in Brisbane,” the coroner said.
But RTBU assistant state secretary Tom Brown said that after such a long wait, the findings left a “bitter taste in the mouth”.
Seven years after the attack, only a few dozen buses had full screens installed, he said.
Brown argued that half-barriers installed by the council on more than 1,000 vehicles were worse than nothing, because they restrict the driver’s ability to escape attack.
He said there had been 725 assaults on bus drivers to September this year, which is already a record.
The union had also pushed for increased sentences for people found to have attacked a bus driver on duty, which wasn’t taken up by the coroner.
There were 14 other people on the bus at the time, three of them children. Ryan found that many of their lives were saved thanks to the bravery of passing motorists who helped open the rear door of the bus.
He pointed to recent state budgets for evidence of a commitment by the Palaszczuk government to reform the mental health system.
The Moorooka stop where Sharma died is now a shrine. Union members and members of the Indian community will gather there on Saturday in his memory.
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