IRISH SHOP TERROR AT STAB SPREE
■ Beth (27) hid in locked store amid the frenzy ■ Killer shot dead ‘suffered mental illness’
AN IRISH woman has spoken about her terrifying experience of being locked in a shop as a stabbing spree raged in a Sydney shopping centre.
Beth Hassan, from Derry, was working in a shoe shop in Westfield Bondi Junction when Joel Cauchi fatally stabbed six people on Saturday in a crazed attack.
Just after 3pm, the 40-year-old attacked shoppers with a large knife, killing five women, one man, and injuring a nine-monthold baby among 11 others before police shot him dead.
When Ms Hassan returned to work from her break at 3.10pm, she didn’t realise anything was wrong until she heard three gunshots 15 minutes later.
“At the time I didn’t know they were gunshots until I heard everyone screaming and then everyone ran past the shop into the store opposite us,” she told The Star.
“Two of the guys I work with ran to get the shutters closed, but the shutters are so hard you have to proper pull them, and then there’s two locks.
“I could see them stressing and it was almost scarier looking at them trying to get them closed because at this time we still didn’t know what was going on, as soon as you hear three gunshots you just assume there’s going to be loads more gunshots after that.”
The 27-year-old and her coworkers then huddled themselves and two customers at the back of their store, where they waited for around 15 minutes before being allowed to leave the building.
Alarms
“The emergency alarms were going off and on the intercom it announced for everyone to stay where they are and close the tills,” Ms Hassan explained.
“We were still out the back and I was trying to message my friend but none of the messages were sending.
“Then they had another announcement to say we could get everyone evacuated, this was one of the scariest points because there were police everywhere at our level.”
Ms Hassan said she was terrified to leave the building, as she was the first person to go down one of the emergency exits.
“I went first and pushed the door open and we still didn’t know what was going on so I was thinking, ‘What if there are people at the other side of this?’” she said.
“We had no idea where we were going and the emergency exit was like a spiral. You couldn’t see what was around the corner, so it took us a few minutes to actually get out of the building, but we finally got out.”
Ms Hassan said she is “so grateful” that she didn’t see anyone who was injured, but it was heartbreaking to see shoppers terrified.
“We got outside and there were four helicopters, police everywhere, and then the AFP (Australian Federal Police) jumped out of their cars with their helmets and guns and the whole place was on lockdown, we couldn’t move out of the area for a little bit,” she said.
“There were people crying and stuff, there was a pregnant lady in hysterics and other girls crying on the phone, so that was sad to see.”
It later emerged that Cauchi, who had suffered mental health issues since he was a teenager, had fatally stabbed six people.
Four women, Dawn Singleton, Jade Young, Pikria Darchia and another as yet unnamed, died at the scene along with selfless secu