Hostel fire survivor recounts seeing man near burning rubbish
A survivor of last year's Australian hostel fire last year which killed 15 young backpackers, has told a court that he saw a man resembling the suspect near a burning rubbish bin shortly before the blaze.
English backpacker Neil Griffith told Brisbane Magistrates Court that he found the can filled with burning paper when he went into a room at the Palace Backpackers Hostel in Childers, Queensland on June 23.
Robert Paul Long, 37, is charged with arson and the murder of Australian twins Kelly and Stacey Slarke. At the end of the current hearing the magistrate will decide whether there is enough evidence to send him to trial. At this stage he is not required to enter a plea.
Mr Griffith told the court he asked a man, who was sitting at a computer terminal in the room, to help dispose of the burning rubbish.
He said: "He grabbed the bin and walked off to the rear of the building. I believed him to have dealt with the fire. I walked back up the stairs to go to bed."
An hour later, Mr Griffith had to crawl through choking black smoke and clamber over the roof of a neighboring building to escape the hostel which had been engulfed by flames.
The 22-year-old Slarke twins, Kelly and Stacey, were among six backpackers from Britain, four from Australia, two from the Netherlands and one each from Ireland, South Korea and Japan who died in the fire.
