Sydney siege victims speak of ordeal in television special

DESPITE being shot and surviving a horrifying ordeal, Sydney siege hostage Louisa Hope is refusing to take money to help with her recovery.

SYDNEY siege hostage Louisa Hope is turning down offers of financial help and is refusing to be interviewed about her terrifying ordeal.

The 50-year-old former bank executive who has multiple sclerosis and was one of the hostages injured when the Lindt cafe siege came to an end last year, has also closed down a charitable account set up by her friends.

Her stance is in start contrast to other survivors who have signed TV deals worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Hope was picked by gunman Man Haron Monis to be his human shield because she could not fight back.

She received a bullet wound to her foot and her 68-year-old mother Robyn, who refused to leave her daughter, was also shot in the shoulder when the siege ended.

Louisa Hope was shot during the Sydney siege. Picture: Mirror.co.uk

Despite her injuries, Hope has closed the account set up to help her, with just $4000 in it, and she and her mother have refused all media requests for interviews.

Craig Wallace, president of People with Disability Australia, told The Daily Telegraph: “She (Hope) doesn’t want to be seen to be exploiting the situation and is really appropriate in what she does.

Robyn Hope refused to leave her daughter. Picture: Mirror.co.uk

“They are just closing ranks and focusing on their recovery.”

Meanwhile details of the siege drama continue to be revealed in exclusive interviews aired by rival television networks.

In new footage promoting an upcoming Seven News special, mother-of-three Marcia Mikhael said she asked Monis whether she could call her children “because I actually wanted to hear their voices for the last time”.

The footage features interviews with three of Monis’s hostages and Mikhael’s husband.

Mikhael breaks into tears as she recounts the phone call with her family after Monis declared that for every person who escapes he would shoot two.

“That’s when I lost hope ... and I asked if I could call my kids ... because I actually wanted to hear their voices for the last time,” she said, as she tried to fight back her tears.

Mikhael breaks into tears as she recounts a phone call with her children.

“I told them that I loved them very much and I needed them to remember that.

“My eldest son kept telling me ‘mum, stop it, everything’s going to be okay’, and I telling him ‘I know, I know, but just remember that I love you’ ... then I had to hang up.”

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Mikhael being helped away from the siege by police officers.

In the footage, another hostage said that “all hell broke loose” once Monis locked the door of the Lindt cafe in Sydney’s Martin Place last year.

Mikhael explains: “Man Monis gets up and he shows the gun”.

Another hostage, John O’Brien describes Monis’s threats: “He said: ‘I will kill you all one by one’,” adding that he quickly came to the realisation that he was probably going to get shot, whether it was in the cafe, or while trying to get out.

Another hostage explains that Monis’s threat that he was carrying bombs was what “stopped all of us from doing anything,” he said.

Rival television network Nine has also aired footage of its exclusive interview with hostage victims including Selina Win Pe, who also broke down in tears as she relived the ordeal.

“I said please don’t shoot me, please don’t shoot me. I only have my mum, please don’t shoot me,” she said, unable to hold back tears.

“He looked me straight in the eyes and said ‘you have 15 minutes’.”

Selina Win Pe breaks down as she remembers some of the terrifying details of the siege. Courtesy: 60 Minutes/Channel Nine