Witnesses at Whiskey Au Go Go inquest struggling to remember details

A woman who worked at the doomed Whiskey Au Go Go nightclub and went on to marry the owner has told an inquest she and her husband do not talk about the firebombing that claimed 15 lives.

A former Whiskey Au Go Go staff member who married one of the nightclub’s owners has told an inquest the couple do not talk about the deadly fire that claimed 15 lives.

Jeanette Little was working at the doomed nightclub on the night of the fire in March 1973 and was dating one of the owners Brian Little, who she is now married to.

Ms Little told the inquest she worked at the club as a receptionist greeting customers and taking their cover charge.

She said she could not recall how long she had been working at the nightclub but agreed it could have been for as little as seven days before the fire.

The court heard on the night of the fire, Ms Little had been working at the club but left at one point with her now husband to go to dinner at another club.

A drum of petrol used to ignite the blaze at Whiskey Au Go Go nightclub.

In her statement to police in 1973, she said at about 10.30pm that night, Brian Little told her he was going to another club Blinkers and that she and the Whiskey manager John Bell went with him, leaving another waitress Donna Porter to cover her duties.

The court heard in her statement she later gave evidence of feeling tired at about 12.30am on the morning of the arson attack which occurred shortly after 2am and Brian Little suggested Donna Porter could take over her job.

Ms Little said she did not recall leaving the club and she was not sure if another witness could be correct when they claimed to have seen her at another nightclub about 1am.

“During your time working at the Whiskey had you previously been relieved of your duties by other staff,” counsel assisting the coroner Avelina Tarrago asked.

“I think so,” Ms Little responded.

When asked whether the time she left was earlier than she usually would when working at the club, Ms Little said: “I could go home whenever I wanted.”

She said she first learned of the fire later in the morning but could not recall how she found out.

“So given that 15 people had died in that fire and potentially Brian and yourself could have been at the club at the time of the fire, do you have any recollection about the Whiskey Au Go Go nightclub on that particular night independent of your statement?,” Ms Tarrago asked.

Jeanette Little leaves court after giving evidence at the Whiskey Au Go Go inquest.

“It was quite traumatic for me, I would have been the first person to go if I was there so a lot of that is gone,” Ms Little responded.

“So in terms of your statement do you accept that if that is your signature and that it’s signed and witnessed by a police officer that that statement would be true and correct?,” Ms Tarrago asked.

“I have no reason to believe it’s not true,” Ms Little said.

When asked about her communications with her husband about the inquest, Ms Little said she did not know if her husband was giving evidence but he was aware that she was.

When asked if they had any discussion about what she might say at the inquest, Ms Little said: “Just that I don’t really recall a lot.”

“It’s not something we talk about a lot,” she said.

Under questioning from Vincent O’Dempsey’s barrister Chris Minnery, Ms Little said the couple did not discuss the fire.

“Is the fire a topic of conversations between you and your husband over the years?,” Mr Minnery asked.

“No,” she said.

“Do you take the view your husband was involved in the fire or knew about it ahead of time?,” Mr Minnery asked.

“No,” Ms Little responded.

Kath Potter leaves court after giving evidence at the Whiskey Au Go Go inquest.

Earlier, a woman who says she watched three men manoeuvre a barrel into the doorway of the Whiskey Au Go Go nightclub and set them on fire claims police later tried to pressure her to change the statement to say she only saw two men.

Kath Potter, now 71, told an inquest into the deadly firebombing that she attended the nightclub on March 7, 1973, with her friend Elizabeth to meet another friend Bob for a drink.

When she couldn’t find him, Ms Potter, then 22, said she went downstairs to a public telephone to call the Whiskey’s sister nightclub Chequers to ask if Bob was there.

She said while she was on the phone outside the nightclub, her friend Elizabeth pointed out a dark car and told her: “There’s something weird going on here”.

Ms Potter said she saw three men get out of the car, two of medium height and build and one who was tall and thin all wearing dark clothing and talking among themselves.

She said she watched on as the men manoeuvred a large barrel to the door of the club and one of the men ripped up white material, possible a shirt or sheet, which was stuffed into the opening of the drums.

“I saw them light it (the material) before they started to move (the drum) towards the door,” she said.

Ms Potter said she and her friend then “took off”, running to her car across the road and driving home but said the fire had started.

“It was lit, I could see flames and smoke,” she said.

The next day, Ms Potter said she gave a statement to police in her lunch break about what she had witnessed.

Ms Potter said the following week she was visited by police at her home who accused her of lying about what she had seen, saying she needed to change her statement to instead allege she only saw two men, not three.

“They said ‘no you are lying, we want you to correct your statement’ and I said ‘I’m not doing it because I know what I saw’,” she said.

Ms Potter gave evidence that on the Saturday night after the fire, she was at the Chequers nightclub when Whiskey Au Go Go manager John Bell noticed her and asked “are you alright love” and she told him no.

Chequers nightclub in Elizabet St in 1973.

She said he asked her to come into the office for “a chat” with him, the Whiskey Au Go Go owners Brian and Ken Little and her friend Bob.

She gave evidence the men asked her to recount what she had seen on the night of the fire and they were speculating about the identities of the three men.

Ms Potter said rumours had been circulating about a potential attack on nightclubs before the Whiskey Au Go Go firebombing.

“I knew Torino’s had been firebombed, I knew the Roxy had been done and apparently the word was that Chequers was going to get done, the Jet Club was going to be done and the whiskey was going to get done,” she said.

Ms Potter said after the attacks on Torino’s and The Roxy, the Little brothers and John Bell expressed concerns their clubs were “going to be next”.

“They were terrified after what happened to Torino’s and Roxy,” she said.

“I heard them talking because they were terrified. They were absolutely terrified about what was going to happen.”

Ms Potter said when at the Chequers club on one occasion she had witness two men dressed in suits and hats come into the club and a staff member handed them a brown paper package before telling her: “That will keep us safe for another couple of months”.

She said she could not recall who the staff member was and she did not know who the two men were.

It comes as other witnesses to the inquest have said they struggled to recall the events of the night.

The first two witnesses called on Wednesday warned the court they struggled to remember many of the details relating to the case.

The Whiskey Au Go Go nightclub before the fire bombing.

Sylvia Harper had attended the nightclub on the night of the fire to see The Delltones play. She gave a statement to police about her memories of the night in 1973 but said she now struggled to remember many of the details.

“It’s very hard,” she said.

“It’s things that have happened so long ago.”

Ms Harper said she remembered going to the club with her friend Gordon who picked her up in his orange Dodge Charger and they parked outside the Whiskey Au Go Go nightclub when they arrived about 10pm.

Ms Harper said she could not recall the entrance of the club, whether they paid an entry fee, what they spoke about with the club manager John Bell who she believed was friends with Gordon but she couldn’t recall their conversation.

She said the pair left about 1.45am and one element she clearly recalled was a black or dark blue Chrysler Valiant parked across the road from the club in a service station parked the opposite direction to cars surrounding it which she thought was “quite odd”.

“ … all the other cars were parked looking in the opposite way and I thought it was quite funny,” she said.

The Whiskey Au Go Go nightclub after the fire bombing.

Another witness Gregory Clarke gave evidence he and his then girlfriend Jennifer and her stepsister Marie had gone to the Whiskey Au Go Go on the night of the fire to see The Delltones play.

They had never been to the club before.

He said the trio arrived about 7.20pm and left just after 2am, only minutes before the firebombing.

Mr Clarke said he didn’t recall seeing anyone in the reception area when he left but said Jennifer and Marie later mentioned seeing a black or dark coloured car with no lights on in the vicinity of the Fortitude Valley nightclub.

The inquest continues.