Whiskey Au Go Go inquest: James Finch’s confession on video

It was the chilling confession to the crime he spent more than a decade professing he was innocent of. SEE FULL INTERVIEW

The journalist to whom Whiskey Au Go Go arsonist James Finch confessed his guilt has told a court he is convinced the convicted killer was verballed by police investigating the deadly fire.

But former reporter Dennis Watt said that he also believed Finch was guilty of the deadly arson attack that claimed 15 lives.

John Stuart and James Finch were convicted of the Whiskey Au Go Go blaze in 1973 and for 15 years Finch professed his innocence, claiming he had been wrongly convicted.

But after his release and extradition back to the UK, Finch backflipped, confessing his guilt in a videotaped interview with Queensland journalist Mr Watt who flew to England for the interview.

James Finch speaking to then journalist Dennis Watt

A portion of the tape was played in the Brisbane Coroners Court on Tuesday, in which Finch claims he was convinced to take part in the firebombing by Stuart, repeatedly saying: “I never had any intent in my heart to hurt anybody.”

Finch told Mr Watt he was shocked when he realised how many people had been killed in the fire.

“I just couldn’t believe it, Dennis,” he says. “Just completely stunned and numb.”

When asked how he felt about it 15 years later, Finch said that he felt his 15 years in jail was a small price to pay for his crime.

“I’ve never got over it that my action with these other people has led to the deaths of these 15 people,’ he said.

“Because I went in there with no intent in my heart to hurt anybody. I was just a bloke who was used along the line.”

Dennis Watt in 2019

Mr Watt had extensively reported on Finch’s case, saying that he believed he was innocent and thathe even contributed to Finch’s ­parole application.

He told the court he was “devastated” when Finch later called him from England to confess his guilt, later telling police in a statement the revelation was akin to “a king hit between the eyes”.

“For 15 years, he told us one story and then for a short period of time he told us another,” Mr Watt told the court.

“It was shocking.

“In my mind, an extraordinary betrayal not just of myself, and my family and my friends, but all those good who had made extraordinary sacrifices to ­support him… to establish his innocence,” Mr Watt said.

The court heard that prior to the taped confession, Finch had previously stuck to a “code” not to discuss the fire, but was angry about the inconsistency in his treatment and that of the people who murdered Barbara McCulkin and her two daughters.

It’s been alleged that Mrs McCulkin and her children were killed to stop her from revealing what she knew about the ­deadly fire.

“Finch seemed to be enraged by what he saw as inequitable treatment in that he was verballed, he had evidence fabricated against him and he could not understand why the same did not occur where people were purportedly guilty of the rape and murder of women and ­children,” Mr Watt said.

“He took the view their killers were given a licence so as to hide the truth, the full truth of the Whiskey Au Go Go.”

In the interview, Finch claimed that he, along with Billy McCulkin and boxer Tom Hamilton had torched the Whiskey Au Go Go. Finch said McCulkin was the driver, Finch took the fuel drums into the building and Hamilton lit the match.

In his evidence to the court, Mr Watt on Tuesday said that his opinion was still “rock solid” that Finch had been verballed by police.

The inquest continues.