00:02Police Assistant Commissioner Adrian Bodnar was one of the officers to attend the 1996
00:10tragic Port Arthur massacre in which 35 people died and 23 were wounded, one of the darkest
00:17days in Tasmania's history.
00:20Now, he wasn't at the Hillcrest tragedy back in December 2021, but as part of his role
00:26as the Assistant Commissioner giving evidence today, he had to review two hours worth of
00:31body-worn camera footage and as part of that he was asked to liken any, to make any comparisons
00:40between Hillcrest and Port Arthur and he said, he told the court and he became quite emotional
00:46as he said this, his voice began cracking and he became really tearful that he thought he'd
00:52been able to park a lot of the memories of responding to that incident 30 years ago.
00:59But as he reviewed this footage, a lot of those memories came flooding back to him, particularly
01:04because in both incidents there were children who died.
01:08He said that while the incidences themselves were really different, the trauma remains the
01:15same. And he said that no doubt the Hillcrest tragedy would have brought up a lot of painful
01:23memories of other incidents that police officers who dealt with it on the day would have also
01:32responded to previously in their professional careers.
01:35This court has heard about some inconsistencies with how parents could say goodbye to their children.
01:43We heard of one parent who sadly was able to go on to the school oval where their child was
01:50and to
01:50spend time with their child who had died. But we also heard from one parent's mother, Georgie Burt.
01:58Her son, Zane Millor, had died and she didn't get to see him, she told the court earlier, until
02:05three days later at a funeral home. Now, the police commissioner said that he was particularly
02:12sad that she wasn't able to give the that she wasn't given the same opportunity to say goodbye
02:17as other parents had and that on behalf of Tasmania police, he offered his sincere apologies.
02:24Now, this court's also heard about some issues around identity identification throughout this,
02:32throughout the early stages of what was unfolding on that tragic day. And he said that he was aware of
02:40one parent who was told their child had passed away when they actually hadn't and that that was
02:45clearly concerning. He also told the court today that he can see why that might have occurred in
02:51the heat of the moment where there was trauma, there was emotions and people were really just dealing
02:57with such a horrific incident. He also said to the family, again becoming, families again becoming really
03:05tearful at the end of his evidence today that he wanted them to know that police officers,
03:12that paramedics, that everyone there did absolutely everything they could to try and save these
03:17these children. And he said, it's particularly saddening that we couldn't do more. And for that,
03:22I apologise. Today is the last day in the first block of hearings in this coronial inquest.
03:30There'll be another week in November and another week in February.
