Bloodied knifeman paralysed Sydney with fear in six-minute rampage

It took just six minutes for a bloodied knifeman to paralyse Sydney’s CBD with fear after allegedly slashing a sex worker’s throat.

It took just six frenzied minutes for a bloodied knifeman to unleash a ferocious attack in Sydney’s CBD that has shocked the world.

Just under a week after he’d been released from Blacktown Hospital in the city’s west, 20-year-old Mert Ney was first spotted running through the bustling city centre wearing a balaclava at around 2pm yesterday.

Witnesses say he was covered in blood. Police allege that before running out onto the streets he killed a 24-year-old sex worker in her Clarence Street apartment — near Wynyard Station — by slashing her throat.

It was around this time that NSW Police received a call from a 41-year-old woman, saying she had been stabbed in the back outside a cycle shop.

As she took refuge in Hotel CBD, a nearby pub, Ney was seen wielding a knife on York Street and running frantically towards the corner of King and Clarence streets.

It was then that he was spotted by Seven News cameraman Paul Walker, who by chance was stopped in traffic nearby.

He and the reporter with him jumped out of the car and hit record. They could not believe what they were seeing.

Witnesses couldn’t believe what they were seeing. Picture: Twitter / @Ayusha77

A 41-year-old woman was stabbed at around 2pm when the rampage began. Picture: AAP Image/Dean Lewins

“At first you think it’s not real,” Mr Walker told the Sydney Morning Herald. “He was covered in blood and we were just trying to work out what was going on.”

Clutching a kitchen knife at his side, Rey climbed onto the roof of a stopped Mercedes at the intersection. Other witnesses heard him heard him yelling “Allahu Akbar” repeatedly.

He is also understood to have yelled “shoot me, f**king shoot me in the f**king head, shoot me. I want to f*cking die” as he waved his knife.

It was then that an office worker ran towards him armed only with a cafe chair.

Hearing what was going on from his fourth-floor recruitment business on King St, Paul O’Shaughnessy, with his mates and younger brother Luke, ran out onto the street to help.

They joined a group of people who began to chase Ney through the city streets after he’d jumped from the car roof.

“Not saying we were heroes or anything, but people were actually very scared going that way, and we just ran in,” Mr O’Shaughnessy told The Daily Telegraph. “We just got the troops. We said, ‘All right, come on, let’s go and see if we can help’, so we ran towards him.”

Paul O'Shaughnessy gave chase to the alleged attacker. Picture: AAP Image/Dean Lewins

Just six minutes after Ney was spotted after allegedly stabbing his second victim, the heroic bystanders who gave chase pinned him to the ground before police and other emergency services arrived.

The group caught him near a cafe, pinning him to the ground with two chairs on his body and a milk crate over his face.

“For us, it was just about restraining him,” Mr O’Shaughnessy told AAP. “My brother, he was the hero. He got a grip of him, along with another guy we don’t know, and put a crate on his head. He was just mumbling religious things.”

NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller said those six minutes were filled with “terrifying carnage” for everyone in the area.

However, he praised the members of the public who gave chase and detained the attacker using chairs and a milk crate.

They were described by the commissioner as “highest order heroes”.

Mert Ney is in hospital under police guard. Picture: Kartik Lad

Superintendent Gavin Wood said the men’s intervention had stopped other people from being hurt and described them as “significantly brave”.

Mr Fuller added that the rampage was “not currently classed as a terrorist incident” by authorities and the “lone actor” had no links to terrorist organisations.

Ney did, however, have “some ideologies in relation to terrorism”.

“There was certainly information found on him about other crimes of mass casualties and mass deaths around the world,” Mr Fuller said, adding the material was discovered on a USB drive.

“It will certainly be reassessed by the Joint Counter Terrorism Team to see if we have to reassess that terrorism threat.”

The Marayong man, who’s under police guard in hospital, had a history of mental health issues.

The whole incident last around six minutes Picture: AAP Image/Joel Carrett

It’s alleged two women were stabbed, one fatally.

He was known to police but Mr Fuller said his history was “unremarkable” compared with the gravity of Tuesday’s alleged crimes.

Police will examine how Ney went from “seemingly getting on with his life” while living with his parents in western Sydney to allegedly committing such “horrendous crimes”, the commissioner added.

Mr Fuller was asked about reports the 21-year-old may have absconded from a mental health facility before “breaking” on Tuesday.

“If I was forced to make a call … the evidence all points to that,” he replied.