Fire alarms at a backpackers' hostel in Australia were switched off by a manager weeks before a fire tore through the building, killing 15 young travellers, a court heard today.
An Irishwoman, Julie O'Keefe (24) from Bray, Co Wicklow, was among those killed. The blaze at the 100-year-old building in Childers, north of Brisbane, also killed seven Britons, three Australias, two from The Netherlands and one from South Korea and Japan.
Mr John Dobe, co-manager of the Palace Backpackers Hostel, told the Brisbane Supreme Court jury in the trial of Mr Robert Paul Long, accused of arson and two murders, there had been a series of false alarms in the months leading up to the fire on June 23rd, 2000.
Mr Dobe admitted in court today that in the weeks before the tragedy either he or co-manager Mr 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 that the tradesman had failed to show up to fix the system.
Mr 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.
He faces life in prison if convicted of the murders of 27-year-old twins Kelly and Stacey Slarke from Western Australia state, 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 Mr 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.
AP