On Thursday, he told an inquest into the December 2014 siege that Monis asked the staff and patrons to hand over their identification. Stefan Balafoutis leaves the Lindt cafe siege inquest in Sydney on Thursday. Credit:James Brickwood "A very short time after that, I heard Monis say, 'You two can go,' and inferred he was talking to Katrina and Julie," Mr Balafoutis told counsel assisting the coroner Jeremy Gormly, SC. "And Katrina pointed to me and said, 'Can he come with us?' and he said, 'Yes,' " Mr Balafoutis said. He said the trio stood up and started walking towards the glass sliding doors leading out to the corner of Martin Place and Phillip Street.

He said he cannot recall why the three barristers stopped but assumes Monis must have instructed them to. John O'Brien and Stefan Balafoutis flee from the Lindt cafe during the siege. Credit:Getty Images Ms Dawson stood looking out of a window on to Phillip Street. "I don't think Katrina would have done that if she was not told to," he said. Fiona Ma leaves the Lindt cafe siege inquest Credit:Cole Bennetts

Monis asked cafe manager Tori Johnson how he could let people leave if he wanted to. Mr Johnson said they could press the green emergency exit button next to the sliding doors. Mr Balafoutis said he waited for someone to say that he and the two women could exit "but it just simply never happened". "I heard [Monis] making various demands and asking hostages to call the media." Some time later, cafe worker Fiona Ma brought him and the women chairs to sit on.

Later, he was told to stand up against a window looking out on to Martin Place. Mr Balafoutis said he got a clear impression that Monis took a dislike to him, telling him off for opening his eyes and referring to him as "white shirt". "Monis was in constant discussion about letting hostages go and the view I formed was that I was very unlikely to be a hostage to be released by Monis," he said. "I felt in the event that he was to shoot somebody there was a high chance it would be me." He said the hostages who were usually mentioned as being considered for release were Louisa Hope, who used a walking stick, John O'Brien, 82, as well as pregnant women Ms Taylor and Lindt barista Harriet Denny.

Mr Balafoutis said after several hours he noticed Mr O'Brien squeezing, with some difficulty, through a partition between the tables and the glass sliding doors. The two men had previously exchanged whispers about whether the doors would open, with Mr Balafoutis saying he thought they would and Mr O'Brien disagreeing. Mr O'Brien made a toilet stop with Ms Ma in which he asked her about the doors, but she said she did not know. Ms Ma had worked at the cafe Lindt for just one week as a Christmas casual. She was studying dentistry at the University of Queensland at the time. After seeing Mr O'Brien creep towards the green button and successfully open the door, Mr Balafoutis decided to follow him.

Once out of the doors, he turned right and ran down Phillip Street. At 3.40pm the two men were the first hostages to escape the siege, which had begun at 9.44am that day. Mr O'Brien, who played international tennis in the 1950s, said he was keen to get home because he had a sick wife and daughter. He said the longer the siege went on, the more likely he thought Monis would get "trigger happy and blow us all up". "He was quite mad, dangerous, very dangerous," Mr O'Brien said.

"He said he was going to kill us one by one because [former prime minister] Tony Abbott wouldn't answer his phone calls," he said. Mr O'Brien said the daring escape was "the worst five seconds of my life". He said if the door had not opened he believed Monis would "probably shoot the two of us in the back". He said that, despite his age, "I still can run." Monis, Mr Johnson and Ms Dawson were killed in the siege.

The inquest before coroner Michael Barnes continues.