Joeanne Cassar Wiki – Joeanne Cassar Biography
Joeanne Cassar was left fighting for her life after Elijah Chase, 34, allegedly stabbed her at a Centrelink service center in Airport West, Melbourne, last month, in an incident that shocked Australia. A man wanted by police for punching a Centrelink worker in the face allegedly stabbed another employee in the back, nearly killing him, after a series of bureaucratic mistakes.
Daily Mail Australia can reveal that Chase should never have been allowed into the welfare agency in the north-west of the city that day due to a nationwide ban on entering government sites. Chase appeared at Broadmeadows Magistrates Court on Thursday, where his bid to obtain a court-imposed gag order on her alleged offense was withdrawn after opposition from the Daily Mail Australia.
It can be revealed that Chase shouldn’t even have been anywhere near the Centrelink office on May 23rd. Government and police sources have described a series of bureaucratic errors that almost cost a life. Surrounded by supporters, Ms Cassar arrived at the courthouse limping on crutches after suffering what are believed to be life-changing injuries from the savage attack.
Joeanne Cassar Age
Joeanne Cassar is 55 years old.
Joeanne Cassar was attacked at the airport
She refused to speak to Daily Mail Australia because of the ongoing civil action brought against her employer in the days after her assault. Former Victoria Police Commissioner Graham Ashton is in the process of leading an urgent security review of the service center in Australia, and sources told Daily Mail Australia that he has repeatedly spoken to Ms Cassar.
Mr Ashton’s presence is understood to have had immediate results, with customer service staff now authorized to order customers to be screened for security before being admitted to the site. It was an order that Ms. Cassar had allegedly rescinded the very day she was stabbed. A well-placed source told Daily Mail Australia that Chase was well-known to the base workers inside the Airport West Centrelink building.
He has restrictions on all the buildings of Services Australia, which is Centrelink, in Australia, so he cannot enter any office. He is a prohibited customer,” the source said. Under the ban, Chase, which still received payments from Centrelink, was only supposed to communicate with staff by phone. “It’s a personalized service effectively,” the source said. Chase was banned after assaulting a female employee inside the same building in which he allegedly stabbed Ms. Cassar.
“He assaulted the workers and punched a woman in the face,” the source said. The alleged assault on December 20, 2021 prompted police to issue an arrest warrant for Chase, one that was only executed 18 months later when he allegedly stabbed Ms. Cassar at work.
It is not clear why he was not locked up in May last year after being charged with further assaults in Brunswick. Chase is also accused of breaking another worker’s clavicle during an alleged riot at a JobFind Center in Coburg.
It was revealed last month that Chase had been wanted on a warrant and for violating a community corrections order at the time of his alleged attack on Ms. Cassar. A Victoria Police spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia on Friday that Chase had been “actively avoiding the police”.
Chase had been picked up on a Melbourne tram while allegedly still armed shortly after the daylight attack. Police are understood to allege that he stabbed Ms Cassar with a kitchen knife after she confronted him at the door. Chase had attended the office earlier that morning where he self-identified that he was not allowed in and left without incident.
The breach saw Ms Cassar place the front doors in a “controlled entry” state, which she sees everyone entering the building protected before the doors are even opened. A source claimed that the directive was overturned by a superior within an hour of the request.
“It was taken away at a higher level, so the doors had to be opened,” the source said. They told him that he did not have the power to do it and the doors were opened. They were told that they had no authority to do so.
When Chase returned, a security guard normally located inside the office was on his lunch break. A police source said Ms Cassar told Chase she couldn’t go inside and offered to go back inside and get her help.
Witnesses told Daily Mail Australia that Cassar was seen attacking her outside her before she returned to the Centrelink office with Chase allegedly attacking her from behind her. “She followed her from the door to the office,” a witness said.
Daily Mail Australia was told that while Ms. Cassar was taken to Royal Melbourne Hospital with critical injuries, Services Australia was already working to reopen the office. “The agency had already put plans in place to ensure the gate was opened the next morning,” a source said.
“They already had a replacement team ready to deploy if she lived or died.” A former Centrelink worker, who asked not to be named, said staff was only protected by a “panic button”. While workers enjoyed a brief respite from fear of attack during the Covid-19 pandemic, those heightened security measures didn’t last.
“We couldn’t leave staplers on our desks because they were thrown at us. We couldn’t leave any of that on our desks because they used them as weapons and threw them at us,’ said the former worker. “It’s this leftist ideology that has seeped into every government department, every aspect of life and that’s why they had this stupid open door policy and we were all at risk. Each one of us.’
Sources claim that although Chase had previously been evaluated by doctors at Thomas Embling Hospital for the Criminally Insane, he was not found sick enough to be admitted as a patient. Government Services Minister Bill Shorten said Mr. Ashton’s review would examine what could be done better to prevent and deter future incidents.
‘This review will be carried out on a priority basis. The impact of this terrible incident on the staff is evident. Some were too distraught to return to frontline work today,” Shorten told Parliament after the attack.
“I think it is important, and I mentioned it briefly to the shadow minister, that this Parliament expresses its support for all our public servants, in particular the person who was attacked yesterday.” Chase will return to court in July.
Read Also: Who is Diahnne Abbott? Wiki, Biography, Age, Family, Net Worth, Career, More Facts