Whiskey Au Go Go inquest: Killer cop to be called as inquest into nightclub firebombing nears end

As the final phase of the Whiskey Au Go Go firebombing inquest begins, police have spoken of the night the two men convicted of the atrocity were arrested.

A former homicide detective who guarded James Finch for hours after his arrest for Brisbane’s infamous Whiskey Au Go Go arson attack says the killer told him he had not been able to eat since learning 15 people perished in the fire.

The final block of the long-awaited inquest into the 1973 arson attack that claimed 15 lives is expected to run for over a week before state coroner Terry Ryan.

Peter Slatter was a detective senior constable attached to the Brisbane CIB Homicide Squad in 1973 and was working on March 11, 1973, when Finch was arrested.

He was asked by his superiors to sit in a room with Finch while they prepared to interview him.

Mr Slatter told the court Finch was “a bit aggro” and asked who he was and what he wanted when he first entered the room.

He said he watched Finch for several hours from about 10.25am and at one point was sent to the Breakfast Creek Hotel to bring back lunch for police and Finch.

In a written statement, Mr Slatter said Finch was given a piece of fish but hardly touched it, prompting him to ask if there was something wrong with it.

He replied: “It is just that I can’t eat. I’ve hardly eaten anything since Johnny told me there’s 15 dead. It’s been on my mind ever since.”

When asked by Mr Slatter who he meant by Johnny, Finch replied Johnny Stuart.

“I have been living in the bloody bush for days ever since it happened with the snakes and the spiders and ants crawling all over me,” Finch told him.

Peter Slatter leaves Brisbane Coroners Court today. Picture: John Gass/NCA NewsWire

In his statement, Mr Slatter said he also asked Finch about why the heel of one of his shoes was cut off and Finch told him it was because he’d had a bad accident in England and that was also why he couldn’t run from the police when he was arrested.

“I should have made that other detective shoot me,” Finch said.

“I would have been better off.”

Mr Slatter told the court he later learned that Finch had tried to escape from custody earlier in the morning before he began guarding him.

“I know he was left alone inexplicably in the interview room and he sought to escape out the back door of the CIB office and there was a plain clothes policewoman who saw him,” he said.

“She sang out and he was, from what I’ve been told, he was manhandled, taken into that room and that’s when a scuffle took place.”

Mr Slatter said when he arrived to guard Finch, he was “quite morose”.

“He calmed down during the day, I like to think I was a calming influence,” he said.

“I knew not to aggravate him, put it that way.”

A former police constable who was working in the Brisbane watch-house the night Stuart and Finch were arrested has also given evidence as the inquest resumes.

Samuel Sheehan, now 71, retired from the Queensland Police Service in 1995 due to an injury.

He gave a statement in 1973 about his interactions with Stuart and Finch – who were ultimately convicted of the attack – after their arrest.

And today he gave evidence that while he was confident the statement was true and correct, he now struggled to independently recall much of the detail due to the significant period of time that had passed.

Mr Sheehan is not accused of any wrongdoing.

Convicted Whiskey Au Go Go nightclub firebomber James Finch. Picture: File Photo

Vincent O'Dempsey

“The reason I recall these two people is because of the severity of the actions … if that was someone coming in for stealing I wouldn’t remember it at all,” he said.

“I can’t even picture their faces any more.”

Mr Sheehan’s statement detailed that while being charged, Stuart began repeating the words “not guilty” and he turned to Finch and said, “You’re not guilty either.”

In his statement, the former officer said while taking Stuart to a cell, Stuart read out Mr Sheehan’s police identification number and told him he would be a witness as his trial and he would plead not guilty.

“They used to say all sorts of things to us,” Mr Sheehan told the court.

Counsel assisting the coroner Avelina Tarrago asked Mr Sheehan whether he ever felt pressured by more senior officers during his time working at the watch-house in 1973.

“No,” he said.

“What about if you disagreed with something someone more senior to you had done, would you have said anything about it?” Ms Tarrago asked.

“I probably would have objected and told them where to go,” Mr Sheehan said.

Asked whether it was ever implied not to question what was said or done by more senior officers, Mr Sheehan said: “My father was a policeman, 10 boys in our family and five of them were policemen … so I knew what was wrong and what was right and if it was wrong, it was wrong and I wouldn’t have stood for any of that.”

Meanwhile, victim impact statements from a number of people who lost loved ones in the arson attack were read to the court today.

Helen Palethorpe, whose brother Leslie Palethorpe perished in the fire, said the vision of him hanging out the window of a car waving goodbye after his last visit weeks before his death was etched in her memory.

“Little did I know this was the last time I was going to see him,” she wrote.

Ms Palethorpe said she was due to celebrate her 14th birthday on March 9, 1973, with her big brother Leslie due to visit but he tragically died the day before in the early hours of March 8.

She said her brother was her hero who always looked out for her and once saved her from drowning.

“He came and rescued me,” she said.

Ms Palethorpe said her brother was on her mind every day and that her parents never recovered from his death.

She said their mother died 10 years ago clutching a photo of Leslie in her hand.

“The question why it occurred has never been answered,” she said.

“It has broken me.”

Elizabeth Zoller’s younger brother Paul, an avid cook, had been working in the kitchen of a Brisbane hotel and was due to return home to Switzerland to see his family for the first time in two years when he was killed in the Whiskey blaze.

He had intended to leave in mid-February 1973 but his travel documents did not arrive in time, meaning he was still in Brisbane the night of the fire.

“This ultimately led to his tragic fate,” Ms Zoller said.

“This inquest is the first opportunity we’ve had in the almost 50 years since Paul’s death to understand what happened.”

Former Detective Roger Rogerson

Among the remaining witnesses to be called to the inquest are notorious killer cop Roger Rogerson, who is serving a life sentence in a New South Wales prison for the murder of drug dealer Jamie Gao.

The former police officer was sent to Queensland in 1973 to help investigate the deadly arson attack on the Whiskey Au Go Go nightclub and allegations it may have been linked to Sydney criminals.

Rogerson is the last person alive who was in the room when Finch gave his controversial record of interview to police.

Vincent O’Dempsey, the man convicted of the McCulkin family murders, is also expected to be called to give evidence.

The current inquest into the deadly fire was sparked by evidence given at the trials of O’Dempsey and Garry Dubois who were convicted of murdering Brisbane mother Barbara McCulkin and her two daughters Vicki and Leanne.

It was alleged Mrs McCulkin was murdered to prevent her revealing what she knew about the nightclub fire.

Dubois died in prison in June last year before the inquest began.

The inquest is today expected to hear evidence from police officers who worked in Brisbane in 1973.