A psychiatrist has denied any clinical failings when weaning Joel Cauchi off antipsychotics years before he fatally stabbed six strangers, but she has retracted her suggestion that he was not psychotic at the time of the attack.

Mr Cauchi armed himself with a pigging knife on 13 April 2024 and killed six shoppers at Sydney’s Westfield Bondi Junction, while injuring 10 others.

On Tuesday, the psychiatrist who had treated him in Queensland told an inquest she believed he had never been psychotic after she had helped him stop his medication in 2019.

“What would you say to the suggestion that you refuse to accept that Joel was psychotic on 13 April because you don’t want to accept yourself the failings in your care of Joel?” asked counsel Dr Peggy Dwyer SC (PhD).