Sydney siege hostages tell of horror

THE SYDNEY LINDT CAFE SIEGE HOSTAGES - IN THEIR OWN WORDS:

* Selina Win Pe

"It just felt as though we had been left to die."

* Marcia Mikhael

She was angry and worried when told then-Prime Minister Tony Abbott was too busy to speak.

"You don't tell someone who had a gun pointed at their head that," she said, enraged while recounting the moment. "I was concerned that they thought our lives weren't worth saving."

* Harriette Denny

"We felt like they were not doing anything, the police."

* Paolo Vassallo

He said Monis told the hostages: "No one cares about you ... the government doesn't care if you die." Mr Vassallo said the comment had an impact: "You'd like not to believe it, but as the day went on, you sort of did believe it. No one was coming."

* Jarrod Morton-Hoffman

"I heard Joel (Herat) scream, 'He's chasing us'. The time for micro-managing was over. We needed help from outside."

* Louisa Hope (her mother Robyn Hope, also a hostage, was medically unfit to give evidence)

She said it appeared Monis "was psyching himself up" and he was "like an athlete preparing for a big event". "Then he shot the gun and I felt the gunshot," Ms Hope said. "Tori fell forward with his hands still at his head."

* Julie Taylor (pregnant)

"I was frightened that he was going to shoot us in the back," she said. Ms Taylor, who was near a door, was too scared to leave because Monis had threatened to kill one hostage for every one which escaped. "I couldn't live with someone being shot because of our escape," Ms Taylor said.

* Joel Herat

As the hours dragged on, Mr Herat said he didn't expect to survive the siege. While escaping he grabbed the arm of fellow Lindt employee Harriette Denny and ran for the exit as two shots were fired. "I felt bullets whizzing past my ears," he said.

* Elly Chen

As she popped up from her hiding spot, Ms Chen had noticed April Bae trying to unlatch a door and coughed to cover the sound of it unlocking. "We waited until we were sure that he wouldn't be able to hear us and we left," she said.

* Puspendu Ghosh

He said he "had doubts" about the existence of a bomb, and told police that negotiations with Monis had broken down.

* Fiona Ma

Ms Ma had been stacking boxes against a door under orders from Monis when she heard glass shattering as six others were making their escape. "He fired the gun and then he was reloading," she said. "I thought if he's reloading, I can run out now."

* John O'Brien

He recalled the gunman had said mid-morning he would "kill us one by one" because Mr Abbott wasn't answering his calls, and that the then-prime minister "would have blood on his hands". A short time later, Mr O'Brien bluntly refused Monis' order to lie on the floor, telling the gunman he was too old to lie on a hard floor.

* Stefan Balafoutis

Mr Balafoutis told the hearing he was convinced he would be one of the first hostages targeted based on early exchanges between himself and Monis. "I felt that in the event that Monis was to shoot somebody, because he was panicked with the police, there was a high chance it would be me."