If they had picked a different day, the carnage would have been so different, according to a key investigator into this act of terrorism.
It was the Thursday before Easter and there were no school tours scheduled. On a normal day about 40 students and teachers would have been leaving the building to board a bus parked next to the car bomb. “Luckily, the bombers picked the wrong day,” taskforce investigator Gary Ayres said.
Even if the bomb had gone off five minutes later the toll would have been worse, as many more police and court staff would have been in the street heading for lunch.
But for Taylor, 21, there would be no reprieve.
She was a rising star, having graduated as police academy dux, but, like all newbies, she started at the bottom and was working at the watchhouse connected to the court complex.
Loading
On that day she lost the toss on the lunch run, which meant she was walking to the police canteen and was a metre away when the car bomb exploded.
She died 24 days later.
According to taskforce investigator Bernie Rankin, it was only the bombers’ lack of experience that stopped a mass murder. The stolen Holden was packed with stolen gelignite and deliberately detonated in a place where the offenders expected to kill large numbers of police.
“Many of the sticks of gelignite didn’t detonate. If they had put the bomb together correctly, there would have been dreadful consequences.”
