A significant witness at the Stardust inquests was stood down during his third day of evidence after counsel for some of the families suggested he was “blaming the patrons for not being able to get out” and letting the venue’s management “off the hook”.
John Furley, who was a 23-year-old doorman at the time of the February 1981 tragedy, was being examined by Michael O’Higgins SC for the families of 10 of the 48 people, aged 16 to 27, who died in the fire at the north Dublin ballroom.
The inquest on Tuesday and Wednesday heard a series of statements Mr Furley had given in 1981, first to a solicitor for Stardust manager Eamon Butterly on the morning after the fire; others to gardaí later that day and in the days after, and also to a tribunal of inquiry chaired by Mr Justice Ronan Keane.
In each of these he described efforts to open one of the six emergency exits, known as exit five, and the difficulties patrons had until he successfully assisted them.
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He agreed on Tuesday that he had the “impression” in the days after the tragedy that more senior staff members were to be involved in “formulating” employees’ Garda statements, and on Wednesday he accepted that his statements gave an “incomplete” picture of what had happened at exit five.
While he said in his 1981 statements that the exits opened with relative ease, once he instructed “five or six fellas” who were “kicking” it, other witnesses described significant difficulties and “a bouncer” – understood to be Mr Furley – kicking the door and a padlocked chain until it opened.
Mr O’Higgins told Mr Furley on Thursday that he wanted to “highlight the differences between what they are saying and what you are saying” and to invite him to “accept” that the position they set out was “the true position”.
“From the moment this started and from the first time you were giving an account you were saying there was no difficulty opening exit five,” counsel said.
Mr O’Higgins said opening an emergency exit was “a very simple process” and the idea that at none of the “five or six” at exit five would know to push the emergency bar to open it was “ridiculous”.
“Would you accept that it would be impossible that five people wouldn’t be aware how to push the bar open?” he asked.
“Yeah, I understand that, yeah,” said Mr Furley.
Mr O’Higgins read Mr Furley’s evidence at the 1981 Keane tribunal, where he had said: “To me they did not seem to know how to open the door.”
This “appears to be blaming the patrons for not being able to get out of the Stardust,” said Mr O’Higgins.
“That’s not the case,” said Mr Furley.
“The problem for the clients I represent is you are blaming the patrons for the problem at the door and that’s not true,” Mr O’Higgins added.
“There is no blaming the patrons whatsoever,” responded Mr Furley. “The five or six guys who were at that door, eventually when that door was opened, stayed in that position, and they rescued a hell of a lot of people out of that club and there was absolutely ... no blame.”
Intervening, Simon Mills, for the inquests, said a suggestion that Mr Furley had an opinion that was blaming the patrons was “very significant” and “he should be allowed to deal with that at as much length as he feels he needs”.
Mr O’Higgins said Mr Furley had suggested the patrons did not know how to open the door.
“I am suggesting to you ... that was a very unfair thing to say,” he told the witness.
Asked if he accepted that, Mr Furley replied: “Yeah.”
“Not only does it put fault in their direction. It gets the Stardust off the hook for padlocks and chains. Do you follow me?” asked Mr O’Higgins.
“I follow you but none of that is true,” Mr Furley said.
At this point, coroner Dr Myra Cullinane intervened, saying she was giving the witness a five-minute break. Mr Furley did not return to the witness box later on Thursday. He is expected to return next week.
