Lindt siege: Gunman Man Monis told me to ‘sit the f**k down’, hostage Jarrod Morton-Hoffman tells inquest
MARTIN Place siege gunman Man Monis has been described as like a “very dangerous toddler” by one of the Lindt Cafe employees he took hostage.
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LINDT Cafe siege gunman Man Monis has been described as like a “very dangerous toddler”.
Hostage Jarrod Morton-Hoffman, who has emerged as a hero of the 17-hour siege, told the inquest into the siege today that Monis was unstable and emotional.
He said he was like a “very dangerous toddler” during the ordeal.
“In fact he did not seem to be following any logic — his demands changed with the wind,” he said.
“He was driven largely by emotion and anger and he was easy to manipulate.”
The cafe waiter is the first of the 18 hostages to give evidence at the inquest into the siege on December 15 and 16, 2014, as it begins to hear what happened inside the Martin Place cafe while Monis held them at gunpoint for 17 hours before shooting cafe manager Tori Johnson dead.
Earlier, the 20-year-old told the inquest Monis had considered having one of the hostages take his backpack out of the cafe, saying he had bombs inside that police would need to disarm.
The bombs were a hoax but the hostages and police believed his claim that he would explode them.
The inquest was played a Triple-0 call made by Mr Morton-Hoffman at 12.56pm on December 15, 2014, in which he was told by Monis to demand that all vehicles in Phillip St, bordering the cafe, be moved.
“He needs it done fast because he has two bombs and he wants them out of the building,” Morton-Hoffman, 20, told the operator.
Asked today what he thought Monis meant, Mr Morton-Hoffman said he believed Monis had said to him that he had two bombs but he didn’t want to blow them up and he wanted the police to disarm them and “take them out of the building ... so that we don’t die”.
“There was talk about one hostage taking his backpack and placing it outside the (glass doors opening into the Martin Place foyer of the cafe),” Mr Morton-Hoffman said.
Nothing was done about this.
At the end of the Triple-0 call, the voice of hostage Louisa Hope can he heard: “He was about to shoot me and then the police moved as he instructed on time, so please do (it) on time, I don’t want to die.”
About 30 minutes earlier, Mr Morton-Hoffman had been ordered by Monis to make a Triple-0 call demanding a police officer behind a riot shield m1`ove back or a hostage would die.
Monis had his shotgun pointed at Ms Hope’s back at the time. The police pulled back.
The waiter said he thought Monis was a lone-wolf gunman, inspired by IS but he didn’t believe his claims about bombs around the city.
He did think Monis had a bomb in his black backpack, although Monis did not tell them as much.
“He said he had two bombs but he didn’t explicitly say where,” he said.
Mr Jarrod Morton-Hoffman said he initially thought the Reserve Bank across the street was being robbed when cafe manager Tori Johnson told him to lock all the doors.
Then the man sitting with Mr Johnson, Man Monis, told him to “sit the f**k down” and pulled out a sawn-off shotgun, Mr Morton-Hoffman told the inquest into the deadly siege today.
He said Monis then told the staff: “This is an attack on Australia by Islamic State. My brothers and I have bombs around the city.”
One of the customers, barrister Katrina Dawson, died when police stormed the cafe.
Mr Morton-Hoffman, who was working part-time at the cafe while studying at the University of Technology Sydney, said he initially thought Monis was a disgruntled customer when he saw him sitting with Mr Johnson on the morning of December 15.
He said Mr Johnson waved him over and told him to lock the doors.
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“We are closed. Tell the staff everything is OK. We are safe,” he said Mr Johnson told him.
He said he thought Monis may have worked for Chubb security and the Reserve Bank was being robbed and they were all in danger.
Mr Morton-Hoffman said he went to the office to get the keys to lock up and saw fellow hostage Joel Herat in the kitchen.
He got a Stanley knife and gave it to Mr Herat “just in case”.
After the doors were locked and Monis made his statement, he told the hostages to put their phones on the tables and close their eyes.
“If you follow my instructions, you will be safe,” Monis told them.
He led Mr Morton-Hoffman over to the second window down from Phillip St where he made him stand on the banquette and hold a flag. He said he presumed it was an IS flag but didn’t know which way up it went.
He said Monis told him he was holding it upside down.
At one stage, Mr Morton-Hoffman and fellow hostage Joel Herat, 22, were holding up the flag together at the window and despite being told not to talk, they whispered to each other.
“I think one of us said it was stupid that we had to hold up the flag,” Mr Morton-Hoffman said.
He said he could see people taking photographs of him as he looked out of the window.
About mid-morning, one of the waitresses, Elly Chan, began to vomit and Monis allowed her to be helped.
Another hostage, Robyn Hope, who was there with her daughter Louisa, said she wanted the bathroom and Mr Morton-Hoffman said he thought she got away with her demanding voice because of her age.
But Monis told her to be quiet and she stopped when her daughter also told her to “shut up”.
The last phase of the inquest in Sydney is expected to last about two months.
RELATED ARTICLES: MARTIN PLACE SIEGE
• As it happened: How the siege unfolded
• Gunman among three dead as gunfight brings an end to siege
• Hostage down! Moment police stormed cafe
• Identifying the hostages of the siege
• Sydney siege hostage Marcia Mikhael
• Flower tributes at Martin Place
• Hero Lindt cafe manager Tori Johnson ‘was an amazing person’
• Katrina Dawson was a barrister, friend, colleague and mother of three
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