Sydney hostage situation over as girl is rescued

The 52-year-old Australian man had walked into a legal office in Sydney, accompanied by his daughter, and started a standoff with police that media linked to a custody battle for the girl.

“Negotiations broke down and we reached a stage where we had to do something,” Assistant Commissioner Denis Clifford told reporters at the scene after police broke into the office.

Police said the man had been arrested and the girl taken to a waiting ambulance, adding that explosives experts were still studying the backpack. No one else was in the office during the siege, which took place near a Family Court building in outer Sydney.

“We have always operated on the assumption that there was an explosive device in that backpack,” Clifford said. “The girl is very upset and appears distressed, which is understandable, but she is otherwise unharmed,” he added.

Police would not say whether the girl was the man’s daughter, as local media have maintained, but a Sky TV reporter said the girl was heard screaming “That’s my dad!” as she was led away from the scene.

Earlier, Australian broadcasters showed footage of the man looking from the window, wearing a judge’s wig but no shirt. At one point he spat on the wig, and he later smashed the window with a glass bottle before throwing the bottle and a telephone handset out of the hole in the glass.

Second bomb scare in a month

The standoff came after another bomb threat in Sydney just a month ago, when a man broke into a home and strapped what appeared to be a bomb around the neck of a millionaire’s daughter.

The bomb turned out to be a hoax and a man has been arrested in the United States over the incident.