Police pressed me to alter evidence, Whiskey Au Go Go witness Kath Potter says

It’s taken almost 50 years for Kath Potter to be allowed to tell the truth about what she saw on the night of the Whiskey Au Go Go fire.

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

It’s taken almost 50 years for Kath Potter to be allowed to tell the truth about what she saw on the night of the Whiskey Au Go Go fire.

Now 71 and with the memories of that night seared into her memory, Ms Potter on Wednesday gave the first witness account to go to the heart of the reopening of the coroner’s inquest into the firebombing that killed 15 people.

James Finch and John Stuart were the only ones arrested and convicted for the late-night horror that tore through the dive, at the top of Fortitude Valley in Brisbane in March 1973.

Ms Potter, then in her early 20s, told the inquest she witnessed three men start the deadly fire.

She said when she told police this, they tried to pressure her to change her statement to instead allege she saw only two men.

She was never called to give evidence at the inquest that followed the deadly blaze or at the Supreme Court murder trial of Finch and Stuart.

In a day of dramatic testimony in the Coroners Court, Ms Potter said she had gone to the club to a meet a male friend. Many of the other 50 people at the second-story venue had gone to see a band, The Delltones, which had just finished a set.

When she couldn’t find her friend in the club, she went downstairs to call him from a payphone.

James Finch

John Stuart

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

Ms Potter said she saw three men get out of the car, two of a medium height and build and one who was tall and thin.

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

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

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

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

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

She told the inquest the following week she was visited by police at her home who accused her of lying, saying she needed to change her statement to instead allege she saw only 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.

Finch – who died earlier this year in London – and Stuart were arrested days after the fire and charged and later convicted of the arson and the murder of the fire’s youngest victim Jennifer Davie, 17. No one else has ever been charged.

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 said “Are you alright love?” and asked her to go into an office for “a chat” with him and the Whiskey Au Go Go owners Brian and Ken Little.

Police inspect the firebomb damage to the nightclub.

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’s memory of the dark car outside the club was repeated by two other witnesses called to give evidence during the third day of the inquest.

Sylvia Harper had been at the club and clearly recalled seeing a black or dark blue Chrysler Valiant when she left about 1.45am.

Ms Harper told the inquest the car was parked at a service station across the road from the Whiskey Au Go Go facing a different direction to the vehicles around 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.

Another witness, Gregory Clarke, gave evidence that he had gone to the club with his then girlfriend Jennifer and her stepsister Marie. He said Jennifer and Marie later mentioned seeing a black or dark coloured car with no lights in the vicinity of the club.

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