Two Australian police officers were killed in an ambush. It was deemed terrorism – but an inquest says otherwise

Six people died during the shootings at a remote property in Wieambilla, Queensland. A coroner says a family’s shared paranoid delusions drove their attack

Three years ago on a remote Australian property, a trio of paranoid, deluded conspiracy theorists lay in wait.

The three members of the Train family spent a year preparing ambush positions for a confrontation with Queensland police at their home in Wieambilla, 270km west of Brisbane, believing the battle marked the end of the world.

They believed they needed “to defend themselves and their property from what they regarded was an evil advance on them”, a coronial inquest has now found.

The state coroner, Terry Ryan, on Friday accepted evidence by a forensic psychiatrist that they were gripped by a “folie a trois” – a shared psychotic disorder based on the psychotic paranoia of Gareth Train. It was adopted by his wife, Stacey, and his brother, Nathaniel – who were once married to each other and had previously worked as school principals.