Editorial: Your right to know about firebombing

An astonishing 27 pages of a redacted police report into the Whiskey Au Go Go tragedy almost didn’t see the light of day. Today, we can reveal what was written on those pages, writes The Editor.

Almost 50 years after 15 people tragically perished in Brisbane’s infamous Whiskey Au Go Go firebombing, many questions still remain: Did convicted killers John Andrew Stuart and James Finch act alone when they firebombed the packed Fortitude Valley nightclub? Was the subsequent police investigation adequate? Do the whispers of police corruption that surround the case hold any truth?

These were some of the questions the families of the 15 victims of Queensland’s worst mass murder hoped to have answered when the long-awaited inquest resumed in June last year.

But in a startling twist, the inquest raised a new question – did modern-day Queensland Police officers try to cover up allegations of misconduct relating to the original investigation into the massacre?

Fifteen people were killed in the Whiskey Au Go Go fire.

This is a case that changed the face of Queensland, a mass murder so horrific it haunts the state almost half a century later. Queenslanders deserve answers, and that is why The Courier-Mail has fought tooth and nail – at some not insubstantial expense – to get them.

Consequently, The Courier-Mail can reveal the details of the redacted police report that probed, among other things, the effectiveness of the initial police investigation. The pages allege, among other things, that suspects were protected from prosecution – either deliberately or through sheer incompetence. It is a significant contribution to the history of our state.

But the redacted pages in this report almost did not see the light of day. Detective Sergeant Virginia Gray, the senior Queensland Police officer leading the current investigation into the arson attack, revealed in open court last year that she had been asked by her superior to redact 27 pages of her report to the coroner. The court heard those 27 pages dealt with the alleged misconduct of several police officers who interrogated Whiskey killers Stuart and Finch.

Her superior blamed the State Coroner’s office, with Det Sgt Gray telling the court that his reasoning was that it was information the court did not want to hear as it “didn’t need references to the earlier investigation”. Incredibly, State Coroner Terry Ryan was forced to deny those claims in his own court.

Detective Sergeant Virginia Gray. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Dan Peled

The allegations brought by Det Sgt Gray at the hearings in June were only able to be revealed after The Courier-Mail and The Australian fought a suppression order that prevented her evidence from being reported.

Mr Ryan agreed the principles of open justice must prevail over any embarrassment or reputational harm for the police officers involved, and lifted the suppression order in June. Days later, The Courier-Mail filed another application seeking the release of those all-important 27 pages.

The newspaper argued that Queenslanders, and especially those who lost loved ones in the inferno, had a right to know the information that one of the state’s top detectives thought was important enough to put before the court tasked with unravelling this mystery. Six months later, those pages have finally been released.

Queenslanders have the right to know the people charged with upholding the law are conducting themselves appropriately. Eternal vigilance is critical in post-Fitzgerald Queensland. This, then, is a win for all Queenslanders – not just for the families of those who perished in what has become one of our state’s most infamous crimes.