Queensland’s top cop has revealed the one case that still haunts him today – the freak Dreamworld tragedy that claimed four lives and tore apart a community.
Two years on from the fatal accident, outgoing assistant commissioner Brian Codd said he thought the Gold Coast theme park accident could have been a terrorist attack when news of the incident first broke.
‘Around that time there was still international discussions about places of mass gathering being potential targets to terrorism,’ Mr Codd told the Gold Coast Bulletin.
‘It was still going through my mind and the minds of our senior people at the time, when we didn’t know what we were facing, is to wonder, what are we dealing with, is this a deliberate attack?’
Police boss Brian Codd reveals the one case that still haunts him, the 2016 Dreamworld tragedy
Two years on from the accident, outgoing assistant commissioner Mr Codd said that he thought the Gold Coast theme park accident was a potential terrorist attack
Just after 2pm on October 25, 2016, a suspected malfunction on the Thunder River Rapids ride flipped one of the rafts on a conveyor belt, crushing two and leading to the drowning of two others.
Of the four who died, two were mothers Kate Goodchild and Cindy Low. Both women had a young child on board with them.
In what has been described as ‘miraculous’, both children managed to free themselves from the ride when the raft flipped on its side.
Ms Goodchild’s brother, Luke Dorsett and his partner Roozi Araghi were also killed in the horrific incident.
Just after 2pm on October 25, 2016 a horrific accident occurred on Dreamworld’s Thunder River Rapids ride. A water-based raft had collided with another which led to the deaths of four people
Mother Kate Goodchild (left) left behind a husband, daughter, and newborn baby girl. Luke Dorsett (right) died at the scene along with his partner Roozbeh Araghi
To this day, pictures of the four people who died in the Dreamworld accident still haunts the outgoing commissioner.
‘This all happened in a place that you don’t for one moment expect to be a risk to somebody’s life, it was an enormously confronting job,’ Mr Codd told the Bulletin.
He said that in 2016 the national terrorist threat level was ‘probable.’
Just two years earlier from the Dreamworld tragedy, the Lindt cafe siege made the threat of terrorism on Australian soil very real.
In December 2014 gunman Haron Monis took six hostages in the Martin Place cafe – holding them captive for over 16 hours.
From June 8, Mr Codd will be leaving his post as assistant state commissioner and will be next in charge of the State Crime Command overseeing organised crime investigations.
Mr Codd said: ‘Around that time there was still international discussions about places of mass gathering being potential targets to terrorism
To this day, the pictures of the four people who died in the Dreamworld accident still haunts him
Mr Codd said: ‘We were in a national threat level of probable’ in 2014. Just two years earlier from the Dreamworld tragedy, the Lindt cafe siege made the threat of terrorism on Australian soil very real (pictured)