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Christchurch police were close to arresting a psychiatric patient for attacking a nurse shortly before he murdered a woman while on community leave from Hillmorton Hospital, an inquest has heard.
Laisa Waka Tunidau was stabbed to death by Zakariye Mohamed Hussein outside her Sockburn home on 25 June 2022.
Hussein was jailed for life with a non-parole period of 13 years in November that year.
He had previously been jailed for more than six years for kidnapping, stabbing and intimidating people across Christchurch in March 2012.
At the time of Waka Tunidau's death, Hussein was allowed to leave Hillmorton on unescorted community leave but failed to return when required.
On Tuesday, the inquest heard a nurse had complained that Hussein had tried to stab her in the neck with a shank in December 2021 but she was able to fend him off.
Before the attack Hussein was said to have been brooding over being declined leave.
Waka Tunidau family lawyer Nikki Pender put to another nurse giving evidence that it had been a serious attack.
"It was potentially a very, very serious assault wasn't it? If she had been taken unawares and he had stabbed her in the neck, it could have been fatal couldn't it? It was that level of severity," Pender said.
The nurse agreed, saying she was aware of the incident and a complaint being made to police.
The inquest heard that police emailed Hillmorton Hospital staff in mid-June 2022 to say they were intending to arrest and charge Hussein and were seeking assistance to ensure it was not too disruptive.
Pender said the process took some time, partly because police were under the impression that Hussein was in a secure unit and would not be released into the community.
The nurse who reported the attack said one of the reasons she laid the complaint was because she was concerned that Hussein might be released, Pender said.
The inquest heard that Hussein made a hot cup of coffee and threw it at nurse in 2018.
He was still serving the sentence for his 2012 crimes, so was transferred back to prison.
On the day of Waka Tunidau's murder Hussein was irritable and unhappy about staples being removed from a magazine, telling the nurse who took them out that they were "cruel, not kind".
Another nurse who was working in the unit on 25 June said that it was important to recognise that forensic health care staff were working with patients not prisoners.
"So people being able to go into the community as safely as possible was always something that in pyschiatric nursing was really important because when people aren't in their community it impacts their mental health further," the nurse said.
"For Mr Hussein at that time was there was a significant recognition that being institutionalised and contained within the environment negatively impacted his mental state."
When Hussein was feeling upset or not at a "complete calm baseline", giving him leave to go for a walk or to McDonald's was useful, the nurse said.
The nurse agreed that leave was used therapeutically at times when Hussein was agitated and upset.
Another nurse told the inquest that the unit was under "super stress" at the time of Waka Tunidau's murder.
He said there had been a lot of change in systems and staff at the unit, the team was "ragged" and many people had not worked there for long.
Less experienced staff sometimes took on special patients, which was a particularly hard job and a "bit of a nightmare", and was the case at the time of Waka Tunidau's death, the nurse said.
"You've got stressed nurses, some burnt out, some of the time I am too, and everybody is trying to do their best but there are holes in the system," he said.
On Monday, the inquest heard Hussein had left the hospital on 35 occasions and returned without incident between being granted leave in late April 2022 and the day of Waka Tunidau's murder.
Her family has questioned how he was ever assessed as safe enough to leave the hospital on his own.
The first phase of the inquest is set down for five days.
