News anchor breaks down in tears after learning she knew café hostage victim
Australian TV news anchor Natalie Barr got choked up on air Tuesday morning as she discovered, while reading the names of the hostages killed in Monday’s siege at a Sydney café, that she knew one of the victims.
“I’m just finding out, Katrina, Katrina Dawson, was the sister of a prominent barrister, Sandy Dawson, who has done some work for Channel 7,” Barr said through tears. “The sister of Sandy Dawson, who I know and I have friends who know, she’s a mother of three children. I’m just finding that out this morning?”
According to The Australian, the 38-year-old Dawson, a mother and lawyer, started most days with a morning coffee at Sydney’s Lindt Chocolate Café. When a lone gunman stormed the Martin Place café to take its employees and patrons hostage, Dawson was having coffee with Julie Taylor, a colleague at the corporate law firm Eight Selborne.
Over the next 16 hours, Man Haron Monis, a 50-year-old Iranian refugee who had a criminal record and had been released on bail on a charge of accessory to murder, recorded videos of some of the hostages listing his demands and uploaded the videos to YouTube. The pregnant Taylor was among the captives forced to appear in Monis’ videos.
Tori Johnson, the café’s manager and the other hostage who died in the siege, reportedly tried to grab Monis’ gun when it went off, killing him. The sound of the gunfire prompted the police to storm the café and launch a shootout that left Monis and Dawson dead. Dawson was reportedly killed while trying to shield Taylor, who survived, from gunfire.
In a statement released Tuesday, Jane Needham, president of the New South Wales Bar Association, wrote, “Katrina was one of our best and brightest barristers, who will be greatly missed by her colleagues and friends.”
Australia’s Prime Minister Tony Abbott described the hostages as “decent, innocent people who got caught up in a the sick fantasy of a deeply disturbed individual.”
“It is about an innocent thing as anyone could do, to go and grab a cup of coffee before the working day has fully started,” Abbott said.
