This story sounds like one out of a movie. An armed and barefoot man surrendered to a Seven News Australia cameraman. Then he hijacked the news car.
Seven News cameras were on board the police car chasing him. “My name is Jule Brook I (bleeped) the police. I've done an extremely bad thing,” says Jule Brook, the suspect in this case. With blood on his hands he asked Peter Steer, the cameraman, to call police.
Brook was on a Harley Davidson when he flagged Peter down, who was on his way to the incident.
Brook told Peter he was the person police were looking for after allegedly injuring a woman at a house.
Peter kept him calm and kept up conversation for almost half an hour. He called police a second time.
“I feel like a coward you know, often fought the demons,” said Brook while Peter was on the phone with police.
But as Brook was sitting on the ground, he changed his mind about surrendering; smiling, he pointed a gun at Peter. He then jumped into the news car and sped off.
Brook drove straight to a nearby service station, and another of Peter's cameras mounted inside captured the moment Brook crashed into a sign and slammed into a gas tank.
“He didn't have a weapon at the time but he moved pretty much straight up to the gas bottles, and anything could've happened at this point ‘cause you could hear gas leaking,” says Peter.
The man was taken into custody, but the drama didn't end there; the leaking tank contained 7,000 liters of gas. Firefighters were called in and streets were locked down for hours.
“And he just woke up looked me in the eyes and asked me for a cigarette lighter,” says Guy Elston who was at the service station during the incident.
He says Brook tried to get inside.
“He took about four steps back into a running jump, hit through it at the doors, pretty much knocked him unconscious,” says Elston.
Brook was charged with a number of offenses including attempted murder.
Peter has been a cameraman since 1980.
"I wanted to get that shot of him with the gun, but I didn't want to get shot,” says Peter.
