Leeds Woman In Sydney Tells Of Siege Terror

Ruth Hargreaves speaks about the panic in Australia's biggest city

Published 15th Dec 2014

A Leeds woman who moved to Australia has been telling us about her concerns as the siege at a cafe in Sydney continues. Ruth Hargreaves swapped Bramhope for Down Under ten years ago and now finds her adopted city in the world media spotlight.

"I got three messages through, "are you ok?", "are you in the vicinity?", "are you in the cafe?" whcih thank god I wasn't in the cafe. We live about 35k away from the actual city but we feel like we're just round the corner because we go in there quite often, so it's very scary. "It's quite worrying abotu the terrorist threat now that we live in this city and that someone can just take over a cafe and hold up these people. It's still on going and it's been on going since quarter to 10 this morning (Sun 14th, 11.45pm UK time). "I've thought twice already about going in for New year's Eve, so we're actually going to a tiny little island. We'll still go in for Australia Day, 'cos, you know, what you want to do? Just hide in your house and not go into the city. Otherwise they've won haven't they? So we're gonna try and keep carrying on as normal."