Man 'seizes child hostage' outside Sydney court

 

A command centre has been set up at the scene and police negotiators have been called in

A man with a backpack which he says contains explosives is holding a child at a courthouse in a suburb of Sydney in Australia, local media say.

Police have sealed off the area in Parramatta, with one official saying that there is "a hostage situation".
Some reports say the man is holding his 11-year-old daughter. Details of the incident remain sketchy.
This comes a month after a fake bomb was strapped to a teenager at her home in Sydney.
Bomb experts took 10 hours to remove the device from the neck of 18-year-old Madeleine Pulver. Officers later described the device as a very elaborate fake.
A suspect was detained in the US, and is awaiting extradition to Australia.
'He just snapped'
Police confirmed on Tuesday that an operation was on-going, after streets outside the family courthouse in Parramatta had been sealed off.

The suspect, seen at a window of the court, is believed to be in his 50s

A command centre has been set up at the scene and police negotiators have been called in.
Fire and ambulance crews are on standby outside the courthouse.
The motives for the suspected attack are unclear.
"A male who we believe is in his 50s had entered some legal premises here in the company of a young girl we believe is in her early teens and who's carrying a backpack," New South Wales state police Assistant Commissioner Denis Clifford said.
"Now, he has made some threats in relation to that backpack. We have police negotiators on the scene. They've been talking to the man for some hours now."
"He has made a number of demands which I won't go into at this stage, but we're working through those demands with him and we're doing the best we can to secure a peaceful resolution."
Court clerk Betty Hor said the man walked into the office with a girl on Tuesday morning, "demanding to speak to someone from the local court", the Sydney Morning Herald reports.
Ms Hor said the man "was meant to go to court today but he couldn't find this person, and I think he just snapped".
She added that he then demanded the attorney general's department be called and said: "I've got a bomb in my backpack."
The suspect was later seen through a window wearing a lawyer's wig and then spitting on it.