FINCH:
I was born in London on the 20th. Of December, 1944. I cam [sic] out to Australia first when I was a boy. I was educated in N.S.Wales.
HAYES:
Where do you reside.
FINCH:
I have no residence here.
HAYES:
How long have you been in Brisbane.
FINCH:
I went back to England last September and John STUART wrote to me with a proposition and you will see from my passport that I arrived back here on the 27th. of February –
a couple of weeks ago.
HAYES:
Is this your passport? (Hayes shows him passport
No. C.159691).
FINCH:
Yes.
HAYES:
You will see the endorsements in it. (Hayes looks at passport). Indicated page 6 of the passport – and says – ‘The Department of Immigration stamp shows that you arrived on the 27th. of February, 1973, at Brisbane Airport.’
FINCH:
Stuart arranged my Flight out.
HAYES:
Why did STUART arrange your flight to Brisbane.
FINCH:
John and I have been friends for years.
HAYES:
We are investigating the fire at the WHISKEY AU GO GO CABARET, Fortitude Valley, Brisbane at about 2.10am. on Thursday, the 8th. of this month when fifteen persons namely:-
Colin William FOLSTER -
Darcy Thomas DAY -
William David NOLAN -
Ernest John PETERS -
Desmond John PETERS -
Carol Ann GREEN -
FINCH:
Don’t name them all I’ve been sick ever since it happened. It has worried me. I dry reached [sic] for a day after I heard and then I took to the bush until yesterday.
HAYES:
Are you admitting that you were involved in the deaths of these people.
FINCH:
Yes unfortunately. It was not intended to be this way. It was intended to intimidate them so as Johnny could get what
he wanted.
HAYES:
From what you have told me you are involved in the arson and deaths of the people I have told you about earlier and named in addition:–
Wendy Leone [sic] DREW -
Brian William WATSON -
Peter MARCUS -
Fay Ellen WILL -
Desma Selma CARROL [sic]-
Jennifer Denise DAVIE -
Leslie Gordon PALETHORPE -
David John WESTREN -
and Paul ZOLLER.
I intend to ask you further questions in connection with these matters but I warn you that you are not obliged to answer any questions or make any statements as anything you say will be recorded in this record of interview and may be used in evidence. Do you understand that.
FINCH:
Yes, I know all about that.
HAYES:
What do you mean by saying ‘Johnny could get what he wanted’.
FINCH:
Well I will tell you the story, but before I do I will tell you that it is all Johnny’s idea, all I was to do was to start a bit of a fire down stairs with some petrol and frighten them.
HAYES:
Are you prepared to tell us the full story in your own words.
FINCH:
As you know I went back to England last year and Johnny was writing to me and he told me about this business of trying to stand over the night clubs in Brisbane to try and get money out of them. He told me that he could’nt [sic] break into it because the people running it would’nt [sic] play ball and he wanted to know if I would come out – I agreed to because I would do anything for him.
We exchanged several letters and frnakly [sic] I was glad to get out of the place because things were’nt [sic] too happy at home.
HAYES:
What was the agreement between you and John Andrew STUART.
FINCH:
He told me that he would pay my fare out, he wanted me out here real bad to give the clubs a shake-up, when I arrived Johnny met me at the Airport and told me his plans. He told me that he was having trouble breaking into the protection racket with the Clubs and it just needed a good scare to bring them to the party. He had ideas of getting a protection racket going and kept telling me how [Sydney gangster Lenny] McPherson had it tied up in Sydney and was known as Mr. Big and there were big openings here in Brisbane for him.
HAYES:
Did he tell you how he hoped to succeed with this plan.
FINCH:
Yes. He told me he had studied Psychology and that he had worked out a plan to fool you coppers and set himself up with a perfect alibi. I was to be kept in smoke and nobody was to know that I was here and all I had to do was start a couple of fires and then he would move in and start collecting and I was to get back out of the Country. He told me how he had been setting himself up for months with an alibi by making out to the Police and some reporter that some toughs from Sydney was pressuring him to act as their agent but that he had pretended to everyone that he didn’t want to become involved in it.
HAYES:
Do you know if Johnny STUART is in any way connected with Leonard Arthur McPherson of Sydney.
FINCH:
No. He just wanted to be like him and be the Mr. Big of Brisbane.
HAYES:
What did you expect to get out of John’s protection plans.
FINCH:
It was unlimited Johnny told me and that he would look after me and I just wanted to see him set up and he was going to take care of me.
HAYES:
Are you prepared to tell me of your movements on the night of the 7th. of March, 1973, and the early hours of the following morning.
FINCH:
Johnny and I had discussed a plan and he told me that he would have to have a good alibi because he would be the first one suspected as he had been talking about this around Brisbane to the night club people for some time. We were out at Johnny’s brother’s place early in the night and he told me to stay there and he went off about half past 8 to get his alibi going. He was going to see some reporter. He had been building up to this all week. He told me that he would pick me up later.
HAYES:
What time did John meet you.
FINCH:
About 11 o’clock. His brother was helping him fix the lights of his car and we left about midnight.
HAYES:
Did John give his brother any explanation as to where he was going at that time.
FINCH:
He just said we were going to where we were dug in to s
leep.
HAYES:
What did you do after leaving Johnny’s brother’s place.
FINCH:
We drove in towards town and on the way Johnny pulled up in the bush and picked up two empty drums, he told me he planted them there. Before we got to town, Johnny drove into a side street and there were some cars parked there and we took a drum each and a piece of tubing – Johnny filled his first from a car parked in the Street and then I put my drum under the tank and as I was filling mine a dog barked and we decided to give it away. We put the two drums of petrol in the back of Johnny’s station wagon.
HAYES:
Did you fill both of the drums.
FINCH:
Johnny’s was fairly full, but mine was only about half full when the dogs started barking.
(Break at 7.10 p.m. for tea.)
RECORD RESUMES 7.16 p.m.
HAYES:
What did you do after getting the petrol.
FINCH:
Johnny dropped me off close to one o’clock with the two drums just past the Club – there was no one around, and I put the petrol drums in the dark at the side of the Club. Johnny drove off.
HAYES:
What did you do then.
FINCH:
I walked around and had a look at some of the shops.
HAYES:
What arrangements were there for the lighting of the fire.
FINCH:
Well it was like this – Johnny said he had been at the club a few times and there would only be a handful of people there at about 2 o’clock and that they would soon get out the fire escape. Oh God why didn’t those people get out, why did they stay there.
HAYES:
What were the time arrangements for the ignition of the fire.
FINCH:
Johnny said around about 2 o’clock I was to take off the caps of the drums and roll them into the entrance and then light a full packet of folder matches – you know the ones, like you get at the hotel and clubs and all.
HAYES:
Where did you get the folder matches from.
FINCH:
Johnny gave them to me. They were from some Club or Motel. I can’t remember which.
HAYES:
Well what did you actually do.
FINCH:
I returned to near the Whiskey Night Club Just after 2 o’clock and I waited until there was no one about and I rolled the tins with the caps off into the entrance and I threw the lighted packet of matches on to the petrol and I ran.
HAYES:
Where did you go after you ran away from the Club.
FINCH:
Johnny had arranged for a place for me to go, I got a Cab to the place. I caught it about half a mile away. I’m not going to tell you where I went I don’t want to involve any person.
HAYES:
When did you first learn about the number of persons killed as a result of the fire at the Whiskey Au Go Go night Club.
FINCH:
Johnny told me [in] the morning and I bloody near shit myself and I went through. I stayed in the bush for a couple of days and last night I went to Johnny’s brother’s place. I was sick with worry all the time and it makes me sick to think about it now.
HAYES:
Are you prepared to accompany me to the Whiskey Au Go Go Premises, Amelia Street., Valley, and indicate to me where you placed the drums. You are not oblidged to do so unless you wish to do so.
FINCH:
No. I don’t want to go back near the place.
HAYES:
Will you look at this photograph. You need not comment as the previous warning still applies. (Hayes shows photograph of the entrance to and the building of the former Whiskey Au Go Go night Club to Finch).
FINCH:
Looks at photograph and says – ‘That’s the place.’
HAYES:
By the way what name did you use here.
FINCH:
Doug JONES.
HAYES:
Are you prepared to read this record of interview over aloud and sign it if it is a correct record of our conversations. You are not obliged to sign it unless you wish to do so.
FINCH:
Gentlemen, I want you to understand my position. I have given you my side of the events, but I have never signed anything. That is always the code that I have followed in the past and that is my desire in this case.
REMOVED FROM TYPEWRITER AND ORIGINAL SHEETS HANDED TO FINCH. time 7.53 p.m. on 11/3/73.
— Record of interview replaced in typewriter at 8.7 p.m. [sic] after being read aloud. —
HAYES:
By the way do you wish to add anything further.
FINCH:
No. Only that I am sorry now about the dead people.
HAYES:
Do you wisk [sic] to read the Record of interview taken from John Andrew STUART.
FINCH:
No. I have already read it. I should have known that we had no chance of getting away with it, even though Johnny said he had the perfect alibi.
HAYES:
Now are you prepared to sign this record of interview, the same warning still applies.
FINCH:
No. I told you before I don’t sign anything.
The entire interview had lasted just two hours and eight minutes, including a tea break, and in that time Finch had quite readily confessed to the torching of the Whiskey, if the record of interview is to be believed.
Present for the interview, as noted at the start of the record typed by Redmond, was the famous Sydney detective Roger Rogerson. When I telephoned Rogerson at his home in Sydney to get his version of what happened in the interview room on that Sunday evening, he recalled it clearly.
‘John Andrew Stuart kept saying it was Sydney criminals, Mr Bigs, Lenny Mc[Pherson], George Freeman, he was dropping a lot of names. And there was a journalist up there writing up stories about Sydney crims taking over the Valley … It was a way of setting up an alibi. It was all crap. Stuart had been barred from returning to Sydney. He was a ratbag. It was all a story organised by him.’
The mass killing was, naturally, a huge story and a major concern for the Queensland police under Commissioner Ray Whitrod. Whitrod was largely loathed by his force and had been since he took over the job in 1970, and there had been many attempts by members of the Rat Pack, particularly Tony Murphy, to destabilise his leadership, if not oust him altogether.
Allegations would surface years later that the Whiskey was part of an attempt to discredit Whitrod in the eyes of Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen and his government. What sort of competent Police Commissioner allows the country’s biggest mass murder to be committed on his watch?
Abe Duncan, once touted as a possible commissioner himself in the 1970s, was in charge of traffic during the great floods of 1974, and got criticised by Commissioner Whitrod for the chaos on the roads at the time.
‘Whitrod rushed into Communications,’ Abe told me in his nursing home before he passed away. ‘He said, “Abe, what are you doing about this traffic? It’s a very sad commentary on your administration.”
‘And I said, “Don’t you talk to me about administration. Fifteen people died under your administration.” You know what I mean, the Whiskey Au Go Go.
‘He [Whitrod] said, “Don’t let us talk about this here in front of all these people.”
‘I said, “You know very well if your squad had done the right thing so far as Stuart was concerned, he’d be behind bars and he and Finch would never have been able to set the fire at the Whiskey.”
‘From that day on I was a marked man,’ Abe said.
Rogerson said he remembered Whitrod coming down to the interview room in the CIB when they were interviewing Stuart. ‘Whitrod came in; he reminded me of [the actor] Jackie Coogan [Uncle Fester in The Addams Family], little dumpy bloke, came in with shorts on and white sandshoes, he was all confused and didn’t know what to say,’ Rogerson recalled. ‘They pissed him off as quick as they could so they could get back to work.’
Little Fish Are Sweet Page 14