For a lawyer and a social worker who met Man Haron Monis in the years before the Sydney siege, the future gunman looked like an eccentric narcissist in a ridiculous suit.
But they learned he had a dark side.
A social worker who spoke to Monis in 2012, told the inquest into the Sydney siege on Monday when she first met Monis he was clean-shaven and wearing a "quite startling" cream suit with black pinstripes.
She found Monis to be an attention-seeking, self-important manipulator, while his wife was afraid of him and felt he had duped her.
"I got the impression of a man who wanted attention," she said.
The social worker said Monis had told his wife he wanted to become a martyr and was "doing it for Islam".
Monis presented himself as a political fighter for human rights and justice, the social worker said in a statement to the inquest.
By that time he had been charged for sending offensive letters to the families of dead Australian soldiers and, dressed in the robes of an Islamic cleric, had staged public protests where he chained himself outside court.
"I formed the view that he was a hero in his own story," she said.
When she spoke to Monis's wife Noleen Pal about the same time, Ms Pal was a woman who felt betrayed and afraid of the man who had changed markedly since they met.
Monis was "quite westernised" when they first met and for the first few years of their relationship, Ms Pal told the social worker.
But he started to change about 2007 and she became "quite alarmed" when police raided their home in 2009 in relation to the offensive letters.
It was then Ms Pal learned Monis had gone by multiple names and had been born in 1964 - 12 years earlier than he had claimed when they met.
Ms Pal told the social worker she felt duped by Monis, the court heard.
He had become much stricter about his Islamic religion, including trying to force his wife to cover her head and stop dancing or singing.
"What she described about him was a manipulative man who successfully duped her and eventually intimidated and emotionally blackmailed her," the social worker said.
The social worker couldn't recall asking Monis directly if he said that but felt the "narcissistic" self-styled cleric would have made a claim to martyrdom only as a form of self-aggrandisement.
David Cohen, a lawyer who represented Monis in 2013, said Monis believed he was brighter than anyone else.
"He wasn't Mensa material but he wasn't dumb either - he was highly manipulative and he knew the system," Mr Cohen said.
Ms Pal died in April 2013 and Monis was later charged with being an accessory to murder in relation to her death.
The hearing continues on Tuesday.
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