HOPE AFTER HORROR
Louisa Hope, five years after the Lindt cafe siege
Lying on a concrete path in Sydney’s Martin Place, as paramedics attended to a gaping wound in her foot the size of her fist, Louisa Hope couldn’t believe her luck. The 52-yearold had just endured 16 terrifying hours as one of 18 hostages in a murderous act of terrorism in a Sydney cafe, but she was alive. And she made a pledge to herself.
“I knew that I had to get something positive, something good, out of what we just
experienced,” she tells WHO. “The whole country would be emotionally disabled after what had happened. We had to progress, somehow.”
Within weeks, she found a way. Inspired by the frontline staff who treated her at Sydney’s Prince of Wales Hospital, Hope created a unique fund for nurses that would give them access to grants for equipment and education.
Five years on from the Lindt cafe siege, an unprecedented hostage crisis that crippled Sydney and claimed the lives of cafe manager Tori Johnson, 34, and barrister and mother of three Katrina Dawson,
38, the Louisa Hope Fund for Nurses has generated $360,000.
“The siege has brought its own trauma to our lives,” says Louisa, now 57, at her home in Sydney. “I’m just grateful I’ve had the chance to connect with nurses – they are so inspirational. Post-siege, I feel like I’ve been blessed.”
She was far from that state of mind shortly after entering the Lindt Chocolate Cafe, across the road from Channel Seven’s city studio, on the morning of December 15, 2014.
It was 10 days before Christmas, and Louisa and her 72-year-old mother Robin Hope were in the CBD for a legal appointment for Robin. They decided to have breakfast at the well-known cafe in Martin Place, a pedestrian hub decked out in tinsel and lights. After they ordered coffee and toast, a bearded man wearing a backpack stood up and told the 18 customers and staff they were hostages.
“I thought, we’re so close to Channel Seven, it must be [TV show] Candid Camera,” recalls Louisa, a former project administrator at Macquarie Bank. “But when he pulled out the gun, there was that startling moment of – this was real, we were going to die.”
The man was Man Haron Monis, an Iranian-born father of two, who throughout his life had promoted himself as a Muslim cleric, intelligence officer and ‘spiritual healer’.
At the time, the 50-year-old was on bail, having been charged with being an accessory to his ex-wife’s stabbing murder. He had also been charged over more than 40 sexual assaults at his bogus healing practice.
Monis forced the hostages to stand at the windows, some holding up Islamic flags.
He made Johnson call triple-0 to declare an attack on Australia by the Islamic State and claimed there were bombs at locations in the CBD (this was later proven false).
As the crisis unfolded, police set up a command centre in a nearby leagues club and special forces, including snipers, took positions around the cafe and in nearby buildings. Throughout the day Monis demanded to speak to then-prime minister Tony Abbott and forced hostages to make videos of his demands.
“It was not a quiet cafe,” recalls Hope, a devout Christian. “We were busy. He was wanting media attention and everyone was doing their best to keep him pacified.”
Except one woman: Louisa’s mother, Robin. “She was getting agitated, getting angry,” says Louisa. It was Johnson who calmed her down. “He positioned himself to sit next to mum,” says Hope, who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2002. “They held hands and there were little whispers, just trying to pacify her. And thank God he did.”
By nightfall, five hostages had managed to escape and Monis – who had seen none of his demands met – had become resentful, paranoid and erratic. At around 2am, while he was in a back room, Hope saw a chance to flee. A group of hostages were preparing to escape out an unlocked door and Hope planned to join them, but not without her mum.
“This was real, we were going to die” — Louisa Hope
Robin Hope was again sitting with Johnson, but neither were moving.
“Later, I said to mum, ‘Why did you and Tori not run?’” recalls Hope quietly. “And she said that she kept telling Tori to go, but he said, ‘No, I’ll stay with you.’ He made a deliberate decision to stay with mum.”
It was a choice that cost him his life. At 2.03am, six hostages escaped and Monis fired a shot at them. Ten minutes later, he forced Johnson to his knees and shot him in the back of the head.
In the minutes before, Monis had fired a shot above the cafe manager’s head, but the police did not enter the building, much to the fury of Johnson’s loved ones. The 2015-17 inquest into the siege found police should have breached the cafe sooner.
“Tori never leaves me,” says Hope, who witnessed his murder. “When I think of Tori, I think of love.”
Police finally stormed the cafe at 2.13am, killing Monis. A ricocheting fragment from police fire killed Katrina Dawson. Fragments also wounded three hostages, including Hope, who still has shrapnel in her foot.
By the time she was whisked to Sydney’s Prince of Wales Hospital, (POWH ) she was convinced she’d lose the foot.
“I said to a nurse, ‘Tell me straight, what do you think?’” she says. “And the nurse says, ‘I’ve seen worse, you’ll be fine.’ She helped
“We feel we lost our mother that day too”
— Louisa Hope
me to relax. I was so grateful for that.”
It marked the beginning of a crusade for Hope: to find a way to give back to the nurses who treated her wound and who listened to her talk about her trauma during her six weeks in hospital. “It was like in-house counselling,” says Hope.
When one nurse mentioned that the hospital lacked a particular medical device, it sparked an idea: a fund that would provide anything nurses required.
After she received a $25,000 fee for an interview on Nine’s 60 Minutes – an amount that was matched by then-NSW premier Mike Baird – Louisa took the money to the hospital’s fundraising foundation.
“She was worried the money would go into a big pot,” recalls POWH Foundation CEO
Leanne “Lulu” Zalapa, a former cardiac nurse who has since become close friends with Hope. “And I said, ‘Let’s make this a fund that only nurses apply for.’ And she was like, ‘Somebody gets me!’”
That understanding has led to a number of projects, including wellbeing app Nursewell, as well as $280,000 worth of new equipment.
“Something good will come from one of their projects, I’ve no doubt about that,” says Hope. “It’s a happy thing. I love it.”
It was the positive outcome Hope had been wishing for while lying on the Phillip Street path in the siege’s aftermath.
Establishing the foundation also provided some solace to her own trauma, which has included the loss of Robin last year, aged 76.
“We didn’t think we’d lose her so soon,” Hope says. “But she never quite came back after the siege. We feel we lost our mother that day too.”
It’s a day that continues to haunt a nation – both for what was lost, and for what could have been done differently.
“What happened was an attack on our collective psyche,” says Hope, who still occasionally visits the Lindt cafe. “But if we pull back from our natural state of generosity, kindness and openness as Australians, we are defeated – and I’m sure as hell not going to be a part of that.”