Roger Rogerson plays the clown about what went down at Whiskey Au Go Go

The disgraced former NSW ­detective and convicted murderer finally made his much-anticipated appearance as a witness before the renewed ­inquest into the firebombing of the Whiskey Au Go Go.

Roger Rogerson. Picture: Justin Lloyd

Ever the clown. At 1.52pm on Friday inside the Coroner’s Court in Brisbane, a livestream screen flickered to life in the upper left-hand corner of the room.

It showed Roger Caleb Rogerson, 81, disgraced former NSW ­detective, convicted murderer and former pub circuit raconteur, abandon his walker by the door of a room in the Long Bay Correctional Centre in Sydney and scramble, crablike, to a seat before a monitor.

Rogerson, in dark olive-green prison-issue shorts, a long-sleeved olive skivvy and black socks and runners, was finally making his much-anticipated appearance as a witness before the renewed ­inquest into the firebombing of the Whiskey Au Go Go nightclub in Brisbane in March 1973. Fifteen people died in the attack.

His importance as a witness could not be underestimated.

Of the six detectives that interviewed Whiskey suspect James Finch in the days after the fire, ­extracting an alleged confession out of him, Rogerson was the last still alive.

And this week the inquest heard new evidence that Rogerson had been involved with Sydney gangsters who were “jealous” that a successful heroin ring was supposedly being run out of the Whiskey, and that as a lesson the club would be torched.

In June 2016 Rogerson was found guilty of murdering Jamie Gao, 20, in Sydney during a drug deal gone wrong two years earlier.

But for a moment on Friday it appeared that this larrikin with a million tales from the mean streets of Sydney might have maintained his sense of humour.

Rogerson was asked to take the oath before giving evidence, and promised to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. He in fact pledged that he would tell “anything but the truth”.

He was asked to correct the oath and did.

Was Rogerson set to take the mickey out of an inquest into one of the most important inquests in Australian criminal history? Might he use it as a stage?

It appeared not. Stephen Keim SC, counsel ­assisting state coroner Terry Ryan, got straight down to business, and the first knot in the rope that is the seemingly unending Whiskey saga was Rogerson ­himself.

Rogerson and his Sydney police partner Noel Morey flew to Brisbane in the immediate aftermath of the fire to assist Queensland police and to substantiate, or otherwise, rumours that had swirled around Brisbane that Sydney gangsters were set to impose an extortion racket on local ­nightclubs.

Rogerson and Morey would be able to assist with the Sydney criminal connection, if there was one.

Rogerson, too, had always claimed that he and Morey were rushed to Brisbane with such haste that Rogerson arrived in time to witness the bodies still in situ in the burned nightclub.

That would place him in Brisbane just before dawn on March 8, 1973, just hours after the fire.

But on Friday, to add another anomaly to the Whiskey saga, there appeared to be some confusion about exactly when Rogerson arrived in the River City.

A statement given by Rogerson shortly after the fire stated that he had arrived in Brisbane not on Thursday, March 8, when the fire occurred, but Friday, March 9. A telegram from a senior Sydney police officer to Brisbane police also asked that Rogerson and Morey be met at the airport and assisted with accommodation – on March 9.

Rogerson was asked by Mr Keim if he actually did fly up on TAA flight 534 on the Friday.

“I really can’t remember now,” he said.

Did he fly up in the morning – whatever day it was?

“I really can’t recollect when we got there,” said Rogerson. Did he recall seeing the bodies in situ in the club?

“I can’t remember now, unfortunately.”

Did he remember the record of interview conducted with James Finch?

“I don’t remember the record of interview, unfortunately.”

Rogerson denied that Finch’s unsigned confession was the product of a police verbal. He denied that Finch was bashed by police in order to extract that confession. He denied that the record of interview featured no follow-on questions that might have led to the corroboration of evidence, and said it wasn’t his place to tell senior officers from Queensland how to do their job. “It just wasn’t done.”

He remembered criminal John Andrew Stuart – convicted for the Whiskey atrocity alongside Finch – as a “ratbag”, a “rat”, and “nutty as a fruit cake”.

“I had nothing to do with the Whiskey Au Go Go,” he said. “That’s it in a nutshell. I certainly didn’t have a connection with ­people you’re saying had a connection with the club.

“I’d never heard of the Whiskey Au Go Go. I’d never been to it.”

There were no further questions from Mr Keim.

To what extent did Roger Rogerson’s testimony on Friday assist in clarifying the frustrating maze that is the Whiskey story after ­almost 50 years?

Not a lot.

Unfortunately.