Whiskey Au Go Go owner denies firebomb payout plot

A Whiskey Au Go Go co-owner has denied organising the deadly fire for an insurance payout, stating he received no benefit after the club was burned down, resulting in the deaths of 15 people.

A Whiskey Au Go Go co-owner has denied organising the deadly fire for an insurance payout, stating he received no benefit from the club’s arson.

Brian Little, who owned the club with his brother Ken, today appeared in Brisbane Coroners Court which is examining the 1973 firebombing of the Whiskey that claimed 15 lives.

Lawyer Chris Minnery put to Mr Little that a fire and insurance payout was a “solution” to his problems at the Whiskey including an outstanding loan.

Brian Little, who owned the club with his brother Ken. Photo: Dan Peled

“Now I suggest a solution presented itself to all of your problems with the Whiskey Au Go Go – that was a fire and an insurance claim,” he said.

“It‘s impossible the company was under receivership,” Mr Little, now 78, responded.

Mr Little said he gained nothing from the fire and did not recover any money.

Mr Minnery suggested Mr Little had orchestrated the alibi of visiting another club and had removed his future wife from the Whiskey, where she worked, on the night of the fire.

Mr Little denied this, stating his then girlfriend left the club at that time every night because she worked the following day.

“Mr Little was the plan to kill people in the fire?” Mr Minnery asked.

“I don’t. that’s … no,” Mr Little responded.

Mr Minnery is acting for Vincent O’Dempsey who is serving life for the murders of Barbara McCulkin and her daughters, Vicki, 13, and Leanne, 11 and is being called as a witness at the inquest.

Whiskey Au Go Go nightclub fire in Fortitude Valley in which 15 people lost their lives.

He also suggested Mr Little was behind the bashing of former Whiskey manager John Hannay, the placing of an incendiary device under the car of another manager and having the wife of a manager at his other club, Checkers, threatened.

“You‘d agree with me that late 1972 early 1973 it very much did not pay to be a person you didn’t like,” Mr Minnery said.

“That’s not correct,” Mr Little said.

Mr Little said he didn’t dislike the men but two of them were incompetent and he claimed Mr Hannay, who he sacked, was stealing tens of thousands of dollars from the Whiskey.

Mr Little has never been charged.

Asked by counsel assisting the coroner Stephen Keim how the fire affected him, Mr Little said he had a mental breakdown after the trial of John Stuart and James Finch.

“All these people that died, all the staff (Whiskey floorman) John Bell and myself went to every funeral and it was devastating. I was shopping in the Queens Arcade and a lady came screaming out calling me a murderer,” he said.

Stuart and Finch were convicted of the fire but the inquest is probing whether others were involved as has long been suggested.

No others have ever been charged.