WHILE Bernard Gore was trapped inside a Westfield Bondi stairwell — where his body would be found three weeks later — his wife was waiting for him just metres away, on the other side of the door.

The pair had arranged to rendezvous outside the shopping centre’s third-level grocery store on January 6 but, when Mr Gore failed to show, his wife eventually left — having no idea he was so close but in desperate trouble.

The frail pensioner, who was in the early stages of dementia, ­remained missing until his body was discovered on Friday in a stairwell just one floor up from where his wife had been waiting.

media_camera Mr Gore suffered from dementia.

Yesterday Mr Gore’s son Mark spoke about the development, which he said had made the horrible news of his father’s death even worse. “It’s just devastating to think that so close to where he was supposed to meet mum, he was stuck in that stairwell,” Mark told The Sunday Telegraph.

“He just needed someone to open the door for him.”

Mr Gore had travelled from his home in Tasmania to holiday at his daughter’s property in nearby Woollahra, which is where he had left to go shopping.

media_camera Art: Sunday Telegraph

The police investigation is set to continue tomorrow and will seek to uncover how Mr Gore could have been trapped in the centre for so long without being discovered, considering police released four public pleas for assistance during the time Mr Gore was missing.

One of the key questions is likely to be how Westfield security responded after being told by a staff member from the nearby Chanel store that they had seen a man, now believed to be Mr Gore, appearing lost and confused before he was reported missing.

The Daily Telegraph reported yesterday the staff member said: “We were so worried my colleague called security and one of the guards told us they could check CCTV footage to locate him.”

One law enforcement official familiar with the ­investigation yesterday said Westfield did conduct periodic sweeps of the building, but one had occurred just before Mr Gore went missing.

The Sunday Telegraph put this to Westfield yesterday but the ­organisation did not respond to a list of emailed questions.

Other questions to be answered by Westfield ­include whether it conducts searches of the building to prevent similar incidents and, if so, how often they occur.

The state of Westfield’s doors and whether a door locked behind Mr Gore — or if he was simply physically unable to open a door once it had closed — are also key questions to be ­answered.

media_camera Mr Gore’s son, Mark, appealed for information after his father went missing. Picture: John Appleyard

Soon after Mr Gore was reported missing, police began combing through CCTV footage in an attempt to discover if he made it to the shopping centre after leaving his daughter’s home, a police source said.

When investigators couldn’t find any footage, the investigation became more difficult because the search area widened from the shopping centre to include a larger radius around Bondi Junction.

“Police had a description of him but no indication that he made it to Westfield,” the source said.

It is understood police have a list of people they want to interview to piece together how Mr Gore came to die in the stairwell.

IT WAS AN ACCIDENT WAITING TO HAPPEN

A woman who claims to have been trapped in a Westfield stairwell on Boxing Day last year says last week’s death in Bondi was an ‘accident waiting to happen’.

Loretta Fenney, from Wahroonga, says she and her mother Anne Galvin found themselves trapped in the external car park staircase on one of the busiest retails days of the year because there was no adequate signage warning them that the exits locked from the inside.

Mrs Fenney says that despite huge crowds at the complex, she and her mother frantically banged on the doors for ‘a good twenty or thirty minutes’ to no avail.

media_camera Loretta Feeney, pictured with husband Peter, was trapped in stairwell in Hornsby. Picture: Supplied.

“I had a small amount of phone signal and managed to Google the number for centre management where I was able to get on to a security guard,” she said.

“He basically talked us through finding an exit which was located all the way down on the bottom level.

“But it was a very stressful experience.

“We had entered the stairwell because the line for the lift was just too long. There was absolutely nothing on the doors to suggest that the doors locked once they closed on the inside.

“I made a point of checking all of the signage and all they said was ‘Do Not Obstruct’.”

Unlike the retail area, the stairwell, she said, iss not air-conditioned and ‘extremely uncomfortable’.

“I can’t imagine being in there any longer than what we were. It was very hot and very claustrophobic. I can’t imagine what it would be like to be trapped in there alone.”

— Amy Harris

THE ONLY ESCAPE IS A BIG CLIMB - UP OR DOWN

JUST walking Bondi Junction’s enormous mall is exhausting, even for a 20-year-old like me.

But as soon as I get inside one of the centre’s many fire exits, I begin to see why an elderly person — especially one with dementia, like Bernard Gore — might have got into trouble.

I’m here to see if the fire exits are easy to get out of, but it doesn’t take long for me to discover you need to be fit and alert to even work out whether to go up or down.

I enter the first set of fire stairs from the ground floor and immediately attempt to open it from the other side. My hand slips, and I realise that there is, in fact, no handle at all.

media_camera Sarah Keoghan struggles to escape the stairwell at Bondi Junction. Picture: Mark Evans

That means there's no way out at ground floor: in these stairs, you have to go up to escape.

After three steep flights up following the ‘EXIT’ arrows, I finally find a way out: onto a roof carpark.

I set off to test another set of fire stairs on the opposite end of Bondi Junction, this time on the very top level.

I walk in, and this time there is a handle on the other side, but it is locked, which means I can’t get back into the shopping levels.

I have to walk down six flights to reach the exit, a double door that leads to street level.

None of the stairs I inspect contain emergency phones or help points.

— Sarah Keoghan