SYDNEY SIEGE HOSTAGE 'I HAD TO SURVIVE FOR MY DAUGHTER'

Pregnant during the ordeal, café worker Harriette has built a life full of happiness in the past eight years

The day before the Lindt Café siege in Australia, Harriette Denny posed for a photo holding her baby scan pictures that she planned to send to her family announcing her happy news.

A barista at the Sydney eatery, Harriette had decided she was going to ask her manager Tori Johnson to be godfather to her first child when she returned to work.

"Tori was so happy and full of light," Harriette, 38, tells Woman's Day.

"Whenever I see a sunflower, I think of Tori. I see them at the most random of times. I could be having a really hard day, then I see a bunch of flowers and it makes my heart feel so full." Tragically, Tori was killed by the gunman during the 16-hour stand-off, in an unimaginable nightmare Harriette describes as "still so vivid" and understandably finds very difficult to talk about.

Desperate to protect her unborn baby, Harriette recalls how she kept as quiet as she could during the hours of terror, managing to escape after 2 am, just minutes before police raided the venue.

Woman's Day first met with Harriette in August 2015 to celebrate the arrival of her baby Billie Georgina Rose.

Seven years on and quite a few centimetres taller, Billie is now happily twirling and cartwheeling her away around the garden as Harriette talks about how their lives have been since December 2014.

"We've had a couple of additions to our family since Billie," Harriette smiles.