'Frightening' - Irish man describes Sydney scenes where six people were killed

A Donegal man has spoken about the horrifying scenes in Sydney where a knife-wielding man killed six people in a shopping centre before being shot dead.

Declan Greene from Mill Road, Dungloe, and his fiancee Hannah Butler from Clonakilty, Co Cork, were in the crowded Westfield Bondi Junction on Saturday afternoon and witnessed the frenetic scenes inside and then on the adjacent streets afterwards.

“It was like something you’d see on a drama show - there were SWAT teams, detectives, maybe 20 or 30 ambulances, a helicopter,” Declan, a 30-year-old mechanical engineer, tells DonegalLive.

“People were running about everywhere, not sure where they were running to or from. Stretchers took away people who were injured or maybe even dead. I have never seen anything like it in my life. I never want to see anything like it in my life again. It was a crazy scene. Frightening. Nobody knew what was going on.”

Joel Cauchi, 40, began stabbing people with a long blade, which some eyewitnesses described as being 50cm in length. The only man killed in the attack was security guard Faraz Tahir, 30, who tried to intervene. The other victims were Jade Young, 47; Pikria Darchia, 55; Dawn Singleton, 25; Ashlee Good, 38; and Yixuan Cheng, who is believed to be in her 20s. New South Wales Police said several others were injured, including a nine-month-old baby, saved by her mother, Ashlee Good, at the expense of her own life.

Asked whether she believed Cauchi was targeting women, New South Wales Police Commissioner Karen Webb said on Sunday it would be "an obvious line of inquiry".

Declan has been in Australia for over seven years and he and Hannah are moving back to Ireland in six weeks. On Saturday they decided to go to Westfield. Declan had to sort out his phone contact with Vodafone and had arranged to meet Hannah afterwards.

While Hannah, a management consultant, went into Kookai - a women’s clothing shop - Declan passed the time and decided to wander through Myers, a multifloor clothes shop just next door. There he picked up a couple of shirts, which he went to try on. There was some sort of noise outside. Declan snapped the shirts and sent Hannah the photo: “Which colour do you think?”

“Hannah rings me,” Declan says. “Asking me was I alright? She was locked in the shop next door. You wonder right away as to what is going on here.”

Cauchi was wandering about Myers, a much larger store than Kookai, which was almost filled entirely with women.

“Hannah told me there was a man in Myer’s with a knife,” Declan adds. “It didn’t really hit me what was happening and eventually, sirens started and messages were coming out on the intercom saying: ‘Go to the hub,’ which was a designated meet-up point.”

Declan had to decide whether to run or hide, with no idea of what lay in wait. There was soon shooting and sirens. He decided to tread carefully, unsure where to go from one step to the next, a matter complicated as he was not overly familiar with the layout of the centre.

“When I eventually came out, the shop was completely cleared, with the shutters down, so I was locked inside,” he says. “I was on the phone back and forth with Hannah. There was word that there were two people and people thought the shots were coming from them. Then you’re thinking: ‘Is there a gunman in his shop?’

“We got talking, he was a young Australian lad, very worried and that probably made me a bit worse. He was probably in a different changing room. The message kept coming out for people to make their way toward this hub but we didn’t know where it was. You could hear the woman on the mic was panicking as well, she was out of breath and urging shop owners to close down the tills and get moving.

“We eventually found a fire exit at the back of the store but all the doors were locked. We made our way up and managed to get a door that let us out onto the street. It was crazy out there. Really crazy.”

Whilst there, Declan got talking to an Irish woman, who had been in Tommy Hilfiger and the woman with the baby (Ashlee Good) had come running in there.

“She was screaming ‘someone take the baby’ and the woman I was talking to actually held the compression of the woman’s wound, who eventually passed away.”

“Hannah, in this time, had been moved into a shop called Lululemon by the police,” Declan adds. “The security guard (Faraz Tahir) was killed outside of the store and she was in there and his body was in there, one end of the store from them, maybe five or six metres away. She was locked inside for an hour, maybe an hour and a half. It’s a long time when you’re waiting. She was with a crowd that was gathered from different shops. People eventually got released section by section.

“It was worrying as Hannah and I weren’t together. When she came off the phone to me originally, I was standing where it all took place. If I was still there a few minutes in either direction, I would’ve been in the middle of it. Hannah was trying on clothes and we were to meet in the Myers shop afterwards."

Declan stood about on Oxford Street, by the front door of the centre, where a crowd he estimates of over 100 waited. Cauchi was killed inside by a police officer. Hannah eventually got out of a different side, with the cordons meaning the usual 30-second walk was impassable. They left their car and wouldn’t see it again for 48 hours, taking a taxi back to Coogee, a drive of under 15 minutes.

“As it happened, you struggle to comprehend," Declan says. "It was only a day or two later that it set in. I avoided the news for a little while until it settled. It’s so sad for those who died or were injured. People there did nothing wrong, just going about their business on a Saturday. It’s horrible to even think about it.”