A FORMER Tamworth man has spoken about the chilling minutes he spent talking with the armed gunman and hostages at the centre of this week’s fatal Sydney siege.
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The 25-year-old audience relations employee told The Leader he unintentionally became a negotiator in the major police operation when he answered a phone call from a hostage at the Lindt Cafe on Monday morning.
The man, who asked not to be named, said the first of three calls from a hostage came through the main switch line of his Sydney office building shortly after the siege began.
“The person on the call identified themselves as a hostage inside the Lindt building, the initial shock of the entire thing was particularly confronting, he was very calm, very calm and young sounding,” he said yesterday.
“He sounded of a similar age to me.
“It was shocking, I had the TV on right in front of me and it was an unreal feeling from the beginning, but when I got the call it became a really tense and very real moment. I spoke to the hostage and indirectly to the gunman through him on three separate occasions.”
It was during the initial call the man said a threat was made to harm those inside. The hostage said: “the brother wants you to tell all police to back away from the building or he will start killing hostages”.
In the background, he said he could hear the gunman’s voice along with the smaller voices of what he could only “assume” were the hostages inside.
“Those small sound bites created a really vivid, scary and confronting atmosphere,” the man said.
“The first call was a short call. When the other two came I had time to alert authorities and they sort of set up a headquarters really quickly within the building.”
Those authorities included some of the state’s most senior police officers and negotiators who sat with him for the next five hours.
Officers then made a breakthrough and were communicating with the gunman directly and it was then the man said he was left alone to absorb what really happened.
“I spoke to one of my friends in Tamworth after the first call for a very limited time but he calmed me down quickly and I’m very thankful for that brief moment I had with him," he said.
“The thing I was left with, was the gunman was using this gentleman as a proxy and I was being used as a proxy by the police – two unassuming people being thrust into these big roles and communicating with each other.
“I knew his situation and I was sure he was aware of mine.
“It was strange travelling home on the train by myself and people were talking about it. The entire time I was sitting there thinking – this is bizarre, I was a part of this.
“I came home and shut myself down from anything to do with the entire situation and I woke up very early and checked what happened.
“I wanted to make sure the man I was talking to was okay. I couldn’t watch what happened, it had all sort of transcended to the point where I felt like I knew them personally.
“This is a once-off freak event and should be viewed as that – it’s tragic and more than ever it’s the solidarity of people that’s important and people looking past the media spin on the scene.”