Seven apologises after naming wrong man as Bondi Junction attacker

Seven Network has apologised after incorrectly naming a university student as the man responsible for deadly knife attacks in Bondi Junction on Saturday.

On Sunday morning Sunrise and Seven’s YouTube channel named a UTS student as the knife-wielding man who killed six people and wounded 17 at Westfield Bondi Junction.

But NSW Police later named by Queensland man Joel Cauchi as the man responsible. He was shot dead by a female police officer.

The student incorrectly named by Seven was also the subject of false social media posts.

“It’s extremely disappointing to me to see people mindlessly propagating misinformation like this without even the slightest thought put into fact checking,” he told The Australian.

“But what’s even more disappointing to me is a major news network doing this, using my name without waiting for a statement from police to verify this or going out to try and verify it themselves.”

A Seven spokesperson said: “The mistake was human error. It was escalated immediately and rectified. Seven sincerely apologises for the error.”

The man’s name was also published – in relation to the killings – in the comments section of 10’s official TikTok account, and on the TikTok comments page of news.com.au, Nine News and the Daily Mail.

A spokesperson for 10 said: “It is network policy for comments to be disabled for stories of this nature. Unfortunately they were inadvertently left on. As soon as this was noticed, comments were disabled. We sincerely apologise for any distress this has caused.”

For Seven the publishing of the wrong name comes hot on the heels of allegations encircling 7News Spotlight.

In 2022 Seven News wrongfully identified a man as Cleo Smith’s abductor an was forced to settle a defamation lawsuit.

Seven apologised to a horse coach and trainer it wrongly identified as conman Jackson Stern. In 2021 it apologised to a man for wrongly identifying him as the driver who hit and killed a 17-year-old boy in Casula.