The Sydney siege inquest was an inquest into the deaths that occurred during the 2014 Sydney hostage crisis, which was instigated by Man Haron Monis. The inquest started on 29 January 2015, had more than 100 witnesses and was run in blocks into 2016. In Australia, an inquest is mandatory whenever a person dies during a police operation. The inquest was presided over by the New South Wales State Coroner, Michael Barnes, and its task was "to determine how the [three] deaths occurred, the factors that contributed to them and whether they could have been prevented".