It was all a cover-up: Whiskey Au Go Go secrets revealed

A bombshell report kept secret by top police has revealed allegations that suspects in the deadly Whiskey Au Go Go inferno were “protected from prosecution”.

A bombshell report kept secret by top police has revealed allegations that suspects in the deadly Whiskey Au Go Go inferno were “protected from prosecution” and that investigators failed to act on information implicating offenders.

Detective Sergeant Virginia Gray explosively revealed in court she was forced to slash 27 pages from her report prepared for an inquest into the 1973 fire – including criticism of the early police case – saying her boss told her to leave those conclusions for “journalists and police haters”.

The contents of the redacted pages of Sergeant Gray’s report can now be revealed for the first time after The Courier-Mail fought a suppression order relating to the senior police officer’s evidence, and successfully argued to have the missing pages publicly released.

Among the detail included on the slashed pages are concerns about the “effectiveness and credibility of the original investigation” and concerns that police did not act on information implicating others in the blaze.

The destroyed Whiskey Au Go Go nightclub.

Days after the 1973 inferno that killed 15 people in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley, John Andrew Stuart and James Finch were charged with the arson and murder arising from the nightclub fire and they were later convicted at trial.

Despite significant evidence that the pair did not act alone, nobody else has ever been charged over the firebombing.

“With the benefit of hindsight, the manner in which the early investigation evolved, meant that three days after the fire, the door was effectively closed on the possibility that other parties would be identified and prosecuted for this offence,” Sergeant Gray revealed in the redacted pages.

“There exists an uncertainty, persisting it seems from the time of the fire, that other parties were involved in the WAGG planning and execution.”

Mother Barbara McCulkin (centre) with her children Barbara Leanne McCulkin and Vicki Maree McCulkin. Picture: Supplied

The year after the Whiskey Au Go Go fire, Brisbane mother Barbara McCulkin and her two daughters Vicki and Leanne were abducted and murdered.

At trials of their killers decades later, evidence was produced alleging Mrs McCulkin was murdered to silence her from revealing what she knew about the nightclub fire.

In her report, Sergeant Gray references claims that those responsible for the Whiskey fire and for the McCulkin murders had not faced justice.

“It has also been alleged that these parties were effectively protected from prosecution for their role in the arson murders and in the subsequent related murder of Barbara McCulkin and her two daughters,” she wrote.

“This protection being in the form of either deliberate decisions to protect these other offenders or as an unintentional result of the investigative approach used to ensure the timely arrest and conviction of Finch and Stuart.

“While acknowledging the original investigators were under immense pressure to get a result, questions around the effectiveness and credibility of the original investigation remain.”

James Finch.

John Andrew Stuart.

Sergeant Gray in her redacted report said a review of the 1973 investigative file confirmed police had information implicating others as suspected in the Whiskey arson, but said there was “little or no reference” to the investigation adequately addressing those lines of inquiry.

The existence of the second report was explosively revealed in June last year when a renewed inquest into the deadly fire began.

Detective Sergeant Virginia Gray choked up on the witness stand in testimony claiming her boss asked her to remove dozens of pages from her coronial report including claims the key suspect was “verballed”.

She gave evidence her boss Detective Inspector Damien Hansen told her she needed to dramatically cut back the report because the coroner had specifically made the request of him. State Coroner Terry Ryan later clarified to the court he had not made such a request.

Under questioning from counsel assisting the coroner Stephen Keim SC, Sergeant Gray was asked to explain why two reports had been submitted to the coroner one month apart in late 2020.

She said on September 10, 2020, she had a meeting with her superior, homicide boss Det Insp Hansen, and was told she needed to remove dozens of pages from the report, including insinuations that police had “verballed” James Finch.

She said she produced the shorter report as requested but then sent her full report again asking for it to be used.

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

Mr Keim said the coronial office subsequently received both versions of the report but Det Sgt Gray said she was unaware how the decision was made to comply with her request because she never received a response from her superiors.

Sergeant Gray’s testimony in June was suppressed but the order was lifted days later after lawyers for the The Courier-Mail and The Australian argued it was in the interest of open justice for the information to be made public.

Days later, Coroner Terry Ryan accepted an application by The Courier-Mail seeking for the missing pages to be released and they were distributed on Monday at the resumption of the second three-week inquest hearings.

The inquest is seeking to identify whether anyone other than Finch and Stuart played a role in the attack and will assess the adequacy of the investigations into the inferno.