A policeman has told the inquest into Luke Batty's death of frustrations he and other officers felt at the refusal of magistrates to remand Greg Anderson - the man who ultimately killed the 11-year-old - in custody.
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Senior Constable Paul Topham insisted he thought there was nothing else police could have done within their powers to have prevented Anderson killing Luke at cricket training this year.
"If it wasn't on the 12th of February it would have been a date further down the track," he told the Coroners Court on the fourth day of the inquest.
Anderson was twice granted bail in 2013 despite police concerns of his erratic behaviour and worries for the safety of Rosie Batty and their son Luke.
Anderson went on to kill his Luke, when he attacked him with a cricket bat and a knife at a Tyabb oval. Anderson, 54, was shot by police and died in hospital.
There were four arrest warrants out for Anderson at the time of Luke's murder. Intervention orders were also in place against Anderson: one preventing him from seeing his son outside junior cricket and football matches at weekends and one taken out by a flatmate.
The court heard this week that four officers met with Anderson on January 27 - just over a fortnight before he killed Luke - to serve him with an intervention order but did not know of the arrest warrants because of problems with the police database. Those problems have since been fixed, the court has been told.
Ms Batty also provided police with Anderson's address a week before the fatal attack, the inquest has heard.
Senior Constable Topham told the court on Thursday he was "astounded" when Anderson was granted bail in January 2013 after being charged with threatening to kill Ms Batty.
A DVD of Senior Constable Topham's police interview with Anderson in January 2013 was played to court. In the recording Anderson was argumentative, said allegations against him were lies and eventually refused to participate by sitting in the corner of the interview room.
Ms Batty sat in court while the recording was played and appeared upset.
Anderson was also arrested in May 2013 and was again granted bail several weeks later, despite police objections.
Senior Constable Topham said he was concerned about Anderson throughout 2013 and that he and his colleagues tried everything to get him off the streets. He said police "weren't mucking around" and feared he would be confrontational.
In an email sent to his colleagues at Hastings police warning them to look out for Anderson, Senior Constable Topham wrote: "Going postal will definitely apply to this bloke."
He told the court Anderson was difficult to classify for magistrates because he had no criminal convictions and no diagnosed mental health problems.
"What do we do with somebody like this? ... we went to the courts and the courts let him out," he said.
"That's our frustration as police. We have gone the mental health system and that didn't work and we have gone to the courts and that didn't work."
The policeman said Anderson was also able to be in control of the situation because he was intelligent, knew how to play the system and was "100 per cent bad not mad".
Senior Constable Topham attended the oval after the attack and did not realise Anderson was involved until Ms Batty called out his name, the court heard.
While in the witness box, Ms Batty had her lawyer thank Senior Constable Topham for his efforts in trying to protect her and Luke.
State coroner Ian Gray is examining whether police and the Department of Human Services could have done anything differently in the way they handled the case. The inquest resumes on Friday.
