Within a few hours of the Lindt Cafe siege, police strongly suspected Man Haron Monis was the gunman, had access to an intelligence report detailing his criminal history and had been told he was at the centre of a murder investigation.
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The officer in charge of the murder investigation involving Monis told the ongoing inquest into the siege that she quickly came to the view that it was the self-styled sheik holding 18 people hostage in the central Sydney cafe.
"I reported my suspicions directly to the commander of the homicide squad that it was Monis in the cafe," Detective Senior Constable Melanie Staples told the NSW Coroner's Court on Thursday.
"The intelligence manager asked me to collect some further material that could be accessed by the police."
She said that within a very short space of time police at "siege headquarters" had access to a detailed dossier of information about Monis, including a psychological report.
She then told her commanding officer that Monis had been charged with being an accessory before and after the fact to murder.
"And they were aware that on any view ... he was a manipulative and dangerous man?" counsel for the NSW Director of Public Prosecutions, David Buchanan SC asked her.
"Obviously they were the facts and views I expressed. I can only assume that they had that information and drew those conclusions," Senior Constable Staples replied.
Later, Mr Buchanan quizzed the officer about her criticism of the DPP solicitor responsible for opposing Monis's bail when he appeared before court a year earlier on the accessory to murder charge.
She maintained her argument that the DPP solicitor had not presented all of the relevant facts to the court.
The full details about the strength of the solicitor's performance may never be fully determined after the Coroner Michael Barnes largely rejected an application by the siege victim's families to have the documents included, upholding an argument by the state's prosecutors that they are covered by professional legal privilege.
"I recognise that this may cause difficulties for the inquest and the parties in ascertaining why the bail application was dealt with in this way," Mr Barnes said.
"While that may seem unfair ... it is simply the effect of the law in relation to legal professional privilege."
"Absent statutory intervention there's nothing I can do about that."
The hearing continues.
