Whiskey Au Go Go nightclub murderer James Finch dies in UK

Fire bomber James Finch, convicted over the horrific nightclub blaze that killed 15 people, has died.

The Whiskey Au Go Go nightclub after the fire bombing.

Whiskey Au Go Go fire bomber and mass murderer James Finch has died in the UK, ending one of the most controversial chapters in Australian criminal history.

News of his death was broken today at the pre-opening conference of an inquest into the 1973 tragedy that killed 15 people when a deliberately lit fire raged through the nightclub in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley on March 8.

Finch was convicted alongside accomplice John Stuart, and claimed they had both been framed by corrupt police.

Both were convicted of the murder of the youngest victim, 17-year-old Jennifer Davie, and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Mugshot of convicted murderer James Finch, who died several months ago.

Finch was deported to England in 1988 after serving 15 years, while Stuart died in his cell at Boggo Road Prison in 1979 as the result of a hunger strike.

Over the years, Finch gave different accounts of the events of that night. At one point in the late 1980s, he confessed to then-journalist Dennis Watt that he had set the fire but later recanted.

While Finch is understood to have died months ago, it was only revealed on Thursday when witnesses to the newly reopened inquest into the fatal attack – which will explore whether others, apart from the two convicted criminals, were involved in planning the firebombing – were called to give evidence.

Inspector LJ Bardwell of CIB Scientific Section inspects the damage at the Whiskey Au-Go-Go nightclub in 1973. Picture: Photo File

Coroner Terry Ryan was told in the opening: “Counsel assisting was advised that since announcing the pre inquest conference, Mr James Finch has since died,”

Barrister Stephen Keim, who is assisting the State Coroner, said there was evidence Finch and Stuart were not the only ones involved in the arson and that some findings of the 1989 Fitzgerald Inquiry into corruption within Queensland Police would be used.

The tragedy – which occurred when two 23-litre drums of fuel were thrown into the foyer of the club – was Australia’s worst mass murder case until the 1996 Port Arthur massacre.

The two-week coronial inquest is set to start on June 14.