60 minutes interview - lindt cafe siege
Sydney siege survivors Fiona Ma and Harriette Denny have revealed the horror they and the other hostages experienced at the hands of crazed gunman Man Haron Monis inside the Lindt Cafe, telling how they were forced to beg for survival.
In extended interviews with 60 Minutes reporter Liz Hayes, they are asked 'at what point did you think you could die?'. 'When he fired the first shot,' Fiona Ma answered.
Even more chilling was the revelation from Harriette Denny.
She told of the 18 hostages mental anguish over the 17-hour ordeal and the realisation that someone among the group was going to die. 'We had to beg for our lives,' she said. 'He was going to shoot someone.'
At just 19 years of age, Jarrod Hoffman was the youngest victim of the siege. He and colleague Joel Herat, 21, told Liz Hayes about their decision to arm themselves with switchblades and kitchen knives just minutes after the gunman took control of the cafe.
“I’ve got this knife in my pocket and I know Joel has a knife in his pocket. And we are so close we could do this but you know someone would need to jump, hold his arms down and then I would stab him in the jugular,” Hoffman said.
“But he had his gun, he had it on his knee and I could see that it was pointed directly at Julie Taylor’s back.”
Both Hoffman and Herat have been credited as pivotal in assisting Julie Taylor and four other hostages escape early on December 16.
After having worked as a journalist for more than 30 years, Liz Hayes told The Daily Telegraph earlier in the week that she felt “traumatised” after listening to the victims speak.
“The guilt they feel about surviving, the tears they have — even those who ran, the guilt they have is terrible,’’ she said.