‘Aussies feel bullet proof. We can’t believe this happened’

Andrew Jeffers, an Australian-born Irish citizen, is the chief executive of an accountancy firm based on Hunter Street, about two blocks from Martin Place, the scene of a siege at a café in Sydney.

At about 7am Australian time, he went to the gym. Afterwards, at breakfast, his trainer received a message alerting him to what was happening nearby.

Jeffers suggested they go and take a look. “So we went up there and the whole place was locked down.” Jeffers said there were a lot of people in the area and that he became concerned things might turn ugly if there was a hostage situation so he went back to his office on Hunter Street and “watched it unfold on the news”.

Initially he said he thought it was a “storm in a teacup” but the situation “just escalated”. At about 10am he said he saw the heavily armed police tactical response unit.

He said he locked down his office at around 11am and told his 10 or so members of staff to stay inside and not to go out for lunch or anything. At this point he said he had received about 15 messages checking to see if he was okay.

“At about 3 o’clock the police started doing sweeps and they said we’ve got to leave, we’ve got to get out of here.” He said he escorted his staff outside to get them on to buses and trains.

“We’ve never felt like that in Sydney,” he said. “It was scary.” He added: “I think Aussies are pretty resilient, but don’t get me wrong, it’s the first time we’ve experienced terror.” He said he told his staff not to come in to work on Tuesday, to wait until Wednesday instead.

Jeffers went home to watch the rest of the siege on the news. “I think we don’t know what’s happening. We don’t know whether this guy screwed up and did some stupid thing. But as Aussies, we feel we’re bullet proof and we can’t believe something like this has happened on our watch.”