After almost two years, including109 sitting days at a public hearing, evidence at the Lindt Cafe siege inquest has finally finished.
Every element of what happened in the lead up to, during, and after the deadly Sydney stand-off was dissected.
Among 119 witnesses, many police officers were questioned over their involvement.
The New South Wales Police Association acting president, Tony King, says it's been a "show trial".
"The sideline commentary and comments like "it's a disgrace" from top to bottom and "it was a slumber party" are just offensive to all police involved and it's time to come out and correct the record and really identify that there's one person to blame and that's Man Monis."
Despite the inquest shedding light on numerous errors in the way police handled the siege in December 2014, Mr King believes it unfairly tarnished the reputation of the entire police force.
He's also criticised the length of time the inquest took.
(In) "All police operations lessons are learned, improvements made, deficiencies in technology or otherwise are identified. To wait two years for an outcome of an in-depth investigation into this matter is just too long in this terrorism space. There has to be a better way."
At 2.13am on December the 16th, 2014, gunman Man Haron Monis executed cafe manager Tori Johnson, and police stormed the cafe in Martin Place.
Tactical officers shot Monis dead.
Barrister Katrina Dawson was killed by bullet fragments from police gunfire.
During the preceding 17 hours, Monis had taken 18 hostages, raised a makeshift IS flag and told his captives he had a bomb in his backpack.
The inquest examined how Monis came to the country and how he was free on bail at the time while facing conspiracy to murder and sex charges.
It also looked in detail at the police operation.
The Coroner's Office has defended its handling of the inquest, saying it hasn't unreasonably targeted police.
A statement from Counsel Assisting, Jeremy Gormly, reads:
"It has not been a witch-hunt. It has been a careful, factual analysis of exactly what happened. At all times the bravery of the police officers who went in has been acknowledged. The difficulties of the siege for any police force has been brought out in detail."
The UK Police Review Team acknowledged this during their evidence.
Mr Gormly's statement also says:
"The inquest has found problems that the police on their own could not have found and could not have known about. It has also provided a clear overall picture of the performance of the police."
Mr Gormly says because two hostages were killed, it's important every detail of how they died was made public.
He says the findings will assist authorities to formulate far better terrorist responses.
The police association's Tony King says it's been hard for all officers involved.
"It's obviously tough for them. To have uncertainty for over two years regarding their actions in the matter it's just too long. It has to be remembered they're still police officers, they're still going to job after job whether it's siege or otherwise, performing their duties with this uncertainty and it's just taken too long."
A number of criticisms the police faced included:
- That the State's only negotiation truck was unavailable due to damage in 2011 and was never replaced.
- The primary police negotiator had never handled a hostage situation.
- Police negotiators had no direct contact with the hostage-taker.
- Hostages' calls to police negotiators were diverted.
- And taped hostage conversations were recorded over.
Mr King says the government should appoint a Supreme Court judge specially trained in counter-terrorism powers and methodology to conduct future inquiries involving terrorism attacks.
"Over in France and Germany they utilise a judicial review of these matters which is over in a number of weeks rather than years. Improvements can be made, lessons learned and we can implement those and move on so that public safety is not undermined."
The New South Wales Coroner is expected to hand down his findings late this year or early next year.
