A coroner has concluded “we will never know” if police would have been able to stop Lynn Cannon from being brutally murdered by her estranged husband had officers arrived at the scene earlier.
Ms Cannon was callously stabbed to death by her ex-husband Paul Cannon, a day after her 51st birthday on December 5, 2022.
Mr Cannon, who was consumed by jealousy after Ms Cannon found love with a new partner, was sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to her murder the following year.
On the night of her death, Ms Cannon’s sister Christine Holmes called police at 7.27pm, concerned she had not heard from her sister, telling the operator Mr Cannon had come to his ex-wife’s home earlier in the day with a knife threatening to kill her.
Her sister was going to Mr Cannon’s home to drop off some forms for a car and had not been heard from since, she told the operator.
The call was allocated a priority two incident, which is categorised as an “immediate or imminent threat”.
However, the job was then downgraded to a priority three job by officers at the police operations centre who decided there was “no direct evidence of imminent threats or harm” and required only a routine response.
The job was eventually upgraded again to a priority two, however, by the time officers had started to head to the address, it was already too late to help Ms Cannon. The first officer arrived at 8.45pm, five minutes after Ms Cannon was declared deceased.
Ms Cannon was stabbed in front of Cannon’s landlord, who fled to call triple-0, with former St John WA paramedic Shane Toovey the first person on scene, risking his life to try to help her.
Mr Toovey, who has since left the ambulance service, in part because of the trauma of Ms Cannon’s death, was praised for his bravery.
In her findings, Acting State Coroner Sarah Linton said: “It is important to recognise that domestic violence homicides can occur even when the police are involved, but in this case, we will never know as police arrived too late on the scene to have any chance to intervene.”
“The ability of police officers to attend was clearly impacted by a lack of frontline resources,” Ms Linton said.
“There was an unanticipated surge in demand for police resources, with close to three times the number of triple zero calls received that night than forecast.
“This meant that there were no resources available when the first call came in, even when it was still classed as a priority two job.”
Police Commissioner Col Blanch has previously admitted Ms Cannon was “let down” on the night of her death.
Ms Linton also quoted former Corruption and Crime Commissioner, judge and prosecutor John McKechnie, who has said: “Laws won’t help. More police won’t help. We need a fundamental chance in the community attitude to domestic violence.”
“Only when we as a community can say this with confidence will we have done the work we must do, to address the damage that family and domestic violence is doing to our community,” she said.
“We must all be inspired to work in Lynn’s memory to do more.”
https://thewest.com.au/news/court-justice/lynn-cannon-inquest-coroner-hands-down-findings-into-murder-of-perth-woman-lynn-cannon-c-19586899
