‘HORRIFIC’

■ IRISH WITNESS DESCRIBES TERROR OF SYDNEY SHOPPING MALL STABBING ATTACK ■ HERO COP SHOOTS DEAD KNIFEMAN AS HE PROWLED, LOOKING FOR MORE VICTIMS

‘Get out! You need to go! Someone’s stabbing!’

AN Irishman caught up in the Westfield shopping centre stabbing attack in Sydney – during which an assailant fatally stabbed six people – has described the ensuing scenes as “just horrific”.

Clare native Niall Naughton, who is living in Sydney, was in Bondi Junction Westfield shopping centre when the stabbings took place.

He told the Saturday with Colm O’Mongain show on RTÉ: “Everyone was in such a state of panic. Everyone was in such distress and overwhelmed, everyone was screaming and crying. It wasn’t a very calm situation. It was just horrific.”

Video of the attack broadcast by Australian news channel 7News and on Twitter shows how the knife attacker lunged at shoppers randomly as he prowled the shopping centre’s concourse.

Other images show a shopper appearing to confront the attacker as he rode up an escalator while others dramatically capture the moment a local police officer confronted him before she was forced to shoot him dead.

Speaking earlier the NSW police commissioner Karen Webb said police did not believe the attack was related to terrorism.

Eight people were being treated in hospital in the aftermath, including a nine-month-old baby whose mother was among the dead.

Police were called to the popular shopping centre at 3.30pm following reports of a multiple stabbing.

HIDING

A local police officer who was nearby tracked his movements through the centre before confronting the 40-yearold man and shooting him as he turned and raised his knife to her.

According to local media, hundreds of people were hiding inside shops and storerooms as the horror attack took place. One of these was Clare man Niall Naughton, who recounted what occurred during his interview on RTÉ earlier. He said he was in the dressing room when he learned that something was happening.

“Next thing,” he said, “somebody pulled back my curtain and said ‘Get out, get out, get out. You need to go… there’s stabbing, someone’s stabbing’

Mr Naughton said he hid with other customers and staff in the basement of the shop with the door barricaded and there was huge panic.

He continued: “I was even thinking of my own family at the time. What if there is a possibility that something is going to happen to me and I’m going to die. I couldn’t even reach for my phone at this stage cos there was so many of us crammed into the room.”

He said he and the other customers got out through an emergency door from the basement outside at the back of the shopping centre.

“I could see hundreds and hundreds of people coming running across the road. There’s a two-way street there and they were coming running across in front of cars.

“There was cars like driving at full speed. It was like something you would see out of a movie. It was that scary.

“I just kept running. That’s all I could do was run as far away from the shopping centre as I could.”

HOMESICK

Mr Naughton said he is in shock after the events of today.

“This has properly shook me to the core. I’ve never in my life thought I’d ever be in an incident where I’d be in some form of attack like that.

“Ultimately you turn around and you think of your family straight away when you’re in an incident like that and it can make you quite homesick too.”

“You want to be with your family. But thankfully I have a good group of friends here that are looking after me this evening.”

Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese has praised the police officer who shot the attacker, saying: She is certainly a hero. There is no doubt that she saved lives through her actions.”