A SERIES of private notes containing “bizarre and highly disturbing beliefs” were discovered in the bedroom of a young knife-wielding woman after she was shot dead by NSW Police, a court has heard.

Deputy State Coroner Liz Ryan today delivered her findings at the inquest into the February 2015 death of Courtney Topic, 22.

Topic was brandishing a large knife outside a fast-food outlet and moving towards a police officer, when she came within two metres of him and he fired his gun, near a busy intersection at Hoxton Park in Sydney’s west. Topic died from a single gunshot wound to the left side of her chest.

“(The police officer) had reason to believe his life was in danger,” Ms Ryan said.

“Errors were made that morning that made the resort to lethal force a tragic inevitability.”

Forensic psychiatrist Dr Kerri Eagle told the inquest that private notes written by Topic and discovered after her death had provided an insight into the state of her mind around the time of the incident.

“Unknown to her family, these writings documented bizarre and highly disturbed beliefs of being controlled, of her mind being read by others, of being forced to participate in an experiment, and of having lost her true identity,” Ms Ryan said.

“The discovery of these anguished writings after Courtney’s death must have been a fresh source of grief for her family.”

Dr Eagle told the court that the notes showed a mind “tormented for several years with an internal world characterised by identity disturbance, persecutory themes … and perceptual abnormalities”.

The inquest heard that Topic had never been diagnosed with schizophrenia but had suffered its symptoms for a sustained period. Dr Eagle said Topic had a lengthy history of reporting auditory hallucinations. Two months before her death, Topic reported to another psychiatrist that she had experienced “invasive memories — fear/panic … I do everything out of fear …

Fear of safety if I don’t do what I’m supposed to do”.

The coroner found that Topic was probably suffering a psychotic episode due to undiagnosed schizophrenia when she took to the street with a weapon in the moments before her death.

She was described by police who attended the scene as looking as though she was “in a daze or in her own little world”, of looking “like a zombie”, and of moving “in a jerky and

uncoordinated way”.

“It is probable Courtney (Topic) was not able to understand that police were telling her to put down her large knife,” Ms Ryan on Monday.

Ms Ryan said Topic shouldn’t have been killed but that it would be wrong to understate the seriousness of this situation.

Outside court, Ms Topic’s parents Leesa and Ron said they had never blamed the police and were pleased with the coroner’s mental health training recommendations.

“Don’t remember her as a statistic, she is not a statistic she is my beautiful girl, who I just want to hold and hug and I’ll never ever be able to do that again,” her distraught mother told reporters on Monday.

“We just hope she is remembered for the beautiful soul she is and if something positive can come out of this so no other family has to live this heartache, then we’ll be grateful for that.”

Ms Ryan made 10 recommendations to the NSW Commissioner of Police, mainly dealing with the training of police officers dealing with people possibly suffering a mental health crisis.

“If changes are not made, there will be more deaths like Courtney’s,” the coroner said.

“The court heard that in Australia, of the persons shot by police between 1989 and 2011, nearly 42 per cent were suffering from a mental illness.”