'Straw that broke the camel's back': Anti-stalking order may have led to supermarket terror attack

A psychiatrist believes orders stopping Ahamed Samsudeen from stalking his female lawyer and a police officer may have been the “straw that broke the camel’s back” in him committing a supermarket terror attack.

Forensic psychiatrist Dr Ian Goodwin told the Coroner’s inquest into Samsudeen’s death about the terrorist’s alarming stalking and harassment behaviours before he attacked supermarket shoppers in 2021.

The Sri Lankan-born refugee stabbed five shoppers and injured a sixth before he was shot dead by undercover police in a West Auckland supermarket.

He had been released from prison, and was on a community-based sentence, two months before the September 2021 attack.

Goodwin told the inquest in Auckland this morning, he became aware of Samsudeen’s behaviour a month after the man was released from prison, in August of 2021, when his lawyer contacted him “out of the blue”.

The lawyer’s identity is suppressed.

Goodwin said within “a few minutes” of reviewing the texts between the lawyer and the man, he realised she was in a “very serious” situation.

The communication showed Samsudeen was “stalking” his lawyer and, more concerningly, trying hard to meet with her alone, which was a major “red flag”, Goodwin said.

In late August, he told the court he advised the lawyer to cease meeting with Samsudeen for her safety.

The volume, duration and content of the texts Samsudeen sent were concerning and showed he could have been suffering from “erotomanic delusion”.

Erotomanic delusion, he explained, was a psychiatric term for when a person wrongly believes someone is in love with them.

“They are absolutely convinced ... in a deluded sense that the other person wishes to have a relationship with them.”

This was marked, he said, by continued contact, even when told not to, and persistent attempts to maintain that contact.

Ahamed Samsudeen in the High Court at Auckland in 2018. Photo / Greg Bowker

The non-association orders

The inquest heard earlier this week that Samsudeen was given non-association orders relating to a female police officer and his lawyer in the days before the attack.

On September 1 of 2021, he received an order not to associate with the officer, the following day, he was ordered not to contact his female lawyer, and by September 3, he injured five people with a knife.

Four of them were women.

Before the orders were made, the inquest heard, the lawyer did not want to be identified as a complainant for fear of provoking Samsudeen.

Goodwin agreed that was a reasonable fear and said generally, non-association orders can make a stalker “quite angry”, generating a “sense of betrayal”.

It was important to be aware of what the reaction might be, the psychiatrist said.

Fletcher Pilditch, KC, acting on the interests of Samsudeen’s family, asked if, given what was known about the man at the time, it would have been “ideal” to have a plan in place for when the orders were made.

Goodwin agreed.

Emergency services rush a victim to an ambulance after the September 2021 attack. Photo / Alex Burton

Samsudeen ‘frustrated’ and ‘thwarted’

The psychiatrist described his assessment of Samsudeen at the time of attack, in hindsight.

“He strikes me as a man who’s being thwarted in every direction,” Goodwin said of Samsudeen.

He’s not allowed a laptop with internet access, struggled to get a phone, then there’s the situation with the lawyer which, Goodwin said, Samsudeen was “frustrated about and also thwarted” by.

He said he could not separate the September 3 attack from Samsudeen’s stalking behaviour.

“As I stated in my report, I think it’s a factor in what occurred,” Goodwin said. “... I suspect that Mr Samsudeen was feeling frustrated, angry, perhaps betrayed with the non-association order.”

“ ... [To] undertake an act that might have resulted in his own death ... I can’t rule that out.”

A risk to one woman, or all

Counsel to assist the coroner Erin McGill asked if the lawyer not reciprocating Samsudeen’s feelings and the non-association order would have been “triggers” for the man.

Goodwin replied “yes”.

McGill asked the psychiatrist if obsessive behaviour like Samsudeen’s, towards “one woman”, meant a risk to women in general, and he replied that no, the obsession was usually “narrowed” to one person.

She asked then if Samsudeen’s stalking meant there was a risk to the general public.

“Generally not, with a straightforward stalking case, but this is not a straightforward stalking situation,” he replied.

Underlying misogyny and violence were also affecting Samsudeen at the time that Goodwin said he didn’t know about until after the attack.

“It may have been the straw that broke the camel’s back, as it were.”

Coroner Marcus Elliott at the first stage of the Samsudeen inquest in 2025. Photo / Michael Craig

The lawyer

Throughout Goodwin’s testimony, Samsudeen’s former lawyer was sitting at the back of the court.

At the conclusion of Goodwin’s testimony, Coroner Marcus Elliott addressed her, saying she played a “very important role” in representing Samsudeen while he was alive.

Hers was a difficult role to perform “at the best of times”, Coroner Elliott said, and Samsudeen’s actions in that context must have been “profoundly distressing”.

He said she had, “in a number of ways”, contributed to the review and inquiry into the man’s death, and must have taken a lot of courage.

The lawyer thanked the coroner and left at the break.

The inquest continues.

Ella Scott-Fleming has been a journalist for three years and previously worked at the Otago Daily Times, Gore Ensign and Metro Magazine. She has an interest in court and general reporting. She’s currently based in Auckland covering justice related stories.