Police officers rescue a girl who was being held by her father. (REUTERS)
SYDNEY — Police stormed a lawyer’s office in western Sydney on Tuesday and freed a 12-year-old girl being held by her father, who claimed to have a bomb, The (Sydney) Daily Telegraph reported.
Police entered the building shortly after 8:00 p.m. local time armed with a battering ram, chainsaw and axe. They walked out around 8:15 p.m. with the girl but the man was still inside.
The girl could be heard asking frantically, “Where’s my dad, where’s my dad?” She was loaded onto a stretcher and into an ambulance.
SEE THE DRAMATIC PHOTOS FROM THE HOSTAGE SITUATION
The 52-year-old father was then taken into custody, ending the eleven-hour drama, police at the scene said.
Authorities had spent much of the day trying to negotiate with the man, who barricaded himself inside the office with the girl and claimed to have an explosive device in his backpack.
Earlier, streets were cordoned off and dozens of workers evacuated as the scene in Parramatta, in the city’s west, was secured.
Assistant Commissioner Dennis Clifford said Tuesday afternoon, “We have been talking to the man for some hours now. He has made a number of demands which I won’t go into at this stage, we’re working through those demands with him.”
Clifford said police were still trying to establish a motive but it was not believed the man’s grievance was related to anything that had taken place in the nearby Family Court building.
A female clerk at the Arthurs Phillip legal chambers said the drama began at 8:50 a.m. when the father came in asking for someone whose name she did not recognize. He briefly left before returning with his daughter and throwing a book at the reception area.
“He said, ‘Phone the attorney general… I’ve got a bomb in my backpack,'” Betty Hor said.
Police arrived minutes after Hor called them and asked the man to come out of a locked office but he refused.
The man then appeared at the window with no shirt on while wearing a lawyer’s courtroom wig. He reportedly took the wig off, spat on it and gave the thumbs down symbol to watching members of the public.
He later smashed a window, badly cutting his hand, although police said the act was simply an attempt to let in fresh air.
The man at the center of the siege has had no dealings with the Family Court, the court and police said.
The incident follows the bizarre attack on Sydney teenager Madeleine Pulver last month, in which she had a fake collar bomb strapped to her by a masked assailant in her home.
She was eventually freed unharmed after a 10-hour ordeal but the case made headlines around the world. An Australian man was arrested in Kentucky over the Pulver case and is awaiting extradition proceedings.
To read more, go to The Daily Telegraph.