"I was going, just walking to have my lunch on a little cafe on King Street and, as I went past the hotel that’s there, somebody emerged from the side of the building," he said. John Bamford appears on Sunrise two days after the Sydney CBD stabbing he helped to stop. Credit:Sunrise "He popped out on the street and I think he … had the knife raised, and I think he called out 'Allahu akbar' so I thought, 'Oh, this is a terrorist' because I could see there was a knife." Mr Bamford said he dropped his newspapers and "just grabbed the chair and went after him, basically, as best I could". The alleged attacker, 20-year-old western Sydney man Mert Ney, remained under police guard at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital on Thursday as he is assessed for his fitness to face charges.

Police are not treating the deadly rampage as terrorism, pointing to Mr Ney's significant history of mental illness and the recent deterioration in his mental state. The violent episode, which left 24-year-old Michaela Dunn dead and 41-year-old Linda Bo in hospital, has prompted urgent reviews in the state government's health and justice portfolios. John Bamford was labelled "chair man" after footage emerged of him approaching stabbing suspect Mert Ney with a cafe chair. Credit:Nine News Asked why he didn't run away as the violence unfolded, Mr Bamford said he didn't see it as a choice. "What am I gonna do? Go home and say I was there and I could've done something and backed away from it?

Loading "I mean, there was just no option. He was there, I had a chance to get him so I was gonna do something about it. What do you do? "By that time … not by the time I’d picked up the chair but shortly after, he’d already stabbed a woman. There was no choice." Mr Bamford also revealed that, during a verbal exchange, the suspect had told him he was carrying a bomb. He said he wasn't frightened, and could tell there wasn't a bomb. "We had a little brief encounter when he jumped off the top of the roof of a car and he went over to the other side ... I forget what I said but I remember what he said, he said he had a bomb in his bag.