Childers: Fire alarms switched off by hostel manager - court
Fire alarms at a backpackers’ hostel in Australia were switched off by one of the managers just weeks before a fire tore through the building, killing 15 young travellers, including Limerick woman Julie O'Keeffe, 24, a court heard.
John Dobe, co-manager of the Palace Backpackers Hostel, told the Brisbane Supreme Court jury in the trial of alleged arsonist and double murderer Robert Paul Long that there had been a series of false alarms in the months leading up to the fire on June 23, 2000.
The blaze at the 100-year-old building in Childers, around 190 miles north of Brisbane, also killed seven backpackers from Britain, three from Australia, two from the Netherlands and one each from South Korea and Japan.
Long, an itinerant fruit picker who had been living at the hostel for about two months, is charged with one count of arson and two counts of murder. He has pleaded not guilty.
Mr Dobe admitted in court today that in the weeks before the tragedy either he or co-manager Christian Atkinson had switched off the alarm system.
He said an electrician had been called after a false alarm about two months before the fire, but the tradesman had failed to show up to fix the system.
Long faces life in prison if convicted of the murders of 27-year-old twins Kelly and Stacey Slarke from Western Australia, who died in the fire.
The jury of nine women and five men, today sought clarification as to why only two of the 15 people who died in the blaze had been named in the murder charges.
Prosecutor Dave Meredith told the court the Slarke twins were chosen as representatives of the 15 dead. He said it may have become needlessly complicated to include the other 13 victims.
‘‘I don’t want it to be thought that we’re discounting the deaths of the other 13 people,’’ Mr Meredith said.
The Britons who died were Mike Lewis, 25, from Bristol; Gary Sutton, 24, from Bath; Sarah Williams, 23, from Aberfan, South Wales; Natalie Morris, 28, from Cefn Coed, South Wales; and Melissa Smith, 26, from Thatcham, Berks, Claire Webb, 24, and Adam Rowland, 19, from England .
The trial is expected to take six weeks and will include about 160 witnesses, 40 from overseas.
