An 11-hour siege in Sydney has ended after police raided a building where a man claiming to have a bomb strapped to his body was holding his daughter hostage.
The girl, aged around 10 or 11, was heard screaming "Where's my dad, where's my dad?" after police took her out of the court building in western Sydney.
Distressed but unharmed, the girl has now been reunited with her family, according to police reports, while a 52-year-old man has been arrested. Assistant Commissioner Dennis Clifford said police had tried to resolve it peacefully.
'‘Towards the latter part of the time we’ve been here those negotiations have started to break down and then deteriorate to a stage where police have taken action to break into the premises and take a 52-year-old man into custody,’’ commissioner Clifford told reporters on Tuesday night.
Explosives experts are still examining the backpack to check whether the man's claims that he was carrying a bomb were true.
The ordeal began when a man entered a law firm in the Sydney suburb of Parramatta shortly before 09:00 with the girl.
He allegedly accosted receptionist, Betty Hor, at the entrance of the barristers' chambers, Arthurs Phillip and demanded to talk to a man whom she had never heard of. When Hor told him that there was no one in the building of that name he "snapped" and threw a book at the reception desk. He said to Hor: "Call the attorney general, I've got a bomb in my backpack".
The stand-off took an odd twist when the man appeared at the second-floor window without a shirt, wearing a barrister's wig. He was then seen communicating with the crowd that had gathered outside and spitting into the wig. He reportedly shouted to police: "I don't care if I die".
Police have been negotiating with the man and have apparently spoken to the girl. The building and surrounding area have been evacuated.
New South Wales Assistant Commissioner Denis Clifford said he won't feel comfortable until the police have established the contents of the backpack. He also confirmed that they now know the man's identity.
"It’s a very delicate situation," Clifford said. The man's daughter was "as well as she can be", and there was no specific threat against her but police were desperate to secure her release.
This incident comes five weeks after a masked intruder broke into a house in affluent northern Sydney, where he attached a bomb to a schoolgirl. The girl spent 10 hours held hostage before police freed her and found the bomb to be fake.