Courts

Stardust management ‘failings’ mean ‘conclusion must be’ 48 people unlawfully killed, court hears

Legal teams conclude closing arguments as Coroner prepares to summarise evidence for jury next week

Tributes left for the victims of the fire in the Stardust Memorial Park in Dublin. Photograph: Sam Boal/Collins

Kitty Holland
Fri Mar 8 2024 - 15:01

A cumulation of “failings” by management at the Stardust nightclub in north Dublin, in which 48 young people died in a fire in 1981, meant “the conclusion must be” they were unlawfully killed, Dublin Coroners Court heard on Friday.

Brenda Campbell, KC for the families of nine of the victims, was one of six for the 45 bereaved families making arguments to the jury as the inquests into the 48 deaths as a result of a fire in the early hours of February 14th, 1981 near conclusion.

Having sat for 111 days coroner, Dr Myra Cullinane, will next week begin to summarise evidence and charge the jury.

The six legal teams for the families urged the jury to return verdicts of unlawful killing. Counsel for Dublin City Council (DCC) suggested a narrative verdict.

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Ms Campbell said “sunlight” shed in evidence on what happened the night of the blaze had “gone a long way to removing the stains, the rumours, the lies, the mistakes that have haunted the families since before the embers of the fire even went out”.

“We are almost there in the Stardust story,” she told the jury. “It is over to you now to write the last chapter. Your chapter is not about blame. It is not about responsibility. But it must record the truth of how these young people died.”

Focusing on the role of the almost 3,000 “highly flammable” carpet tiles that lined most of the Stardust’s internal walls, she said these had caused the fire to “spread rapidly and lethally”.

These, combined with other failings, amounted to failures by Stardust management to take necessary actions to prevent significant injury and death, and so were “substantially causative” of the deaths.

Among the “failings” she highlighted were the presence of the carpet-tiles on the walls, the lack of an evacuation plan, the locking, chained and obstruction of emergency exits, and, the sealing shut of toilet windows with mental plates and bars.

It was “beyond doubt, on any assessment of the evidence, that those failings were causative of the deaths. That being the evidence ... the conclusion must be that the 48 victims of the Stardust fire were unlawfully killed,” said Ms Campbell.

She said “failings” by then Dublin Corporation, now Dublin City Council, had “permitted” management to continue locking exits when the public were on the premises. Complaints had been raised by corporation inspectors and the public about doors being locked, for two years before the fire, she said, but no effective action had been taken.

“The closest we get to enforcement action or a prosecution was a letter on January 23rd, 1981 after The Specials concert just weeks before the inferno,” she said. The inquests heard an inspector found doors obstructed that night and the premises overcrowded.

In response to that letter Mr Butterly, in a letter dated January 27th, 1981, had given “assurances” exits would be kept clear.

“What value, you might ask, were Mr Butterly’s assurances after that very sorry history,” said Ms Campbell.

Noting Mr Butterly had told the inquests that it had been “wrong” to lock the exits, she said: “It was indeed wrong. It was wrong. It was known to be wrong. It was pointed out to be wrong and yet it continued and was permitted to continue. Is that good enough?”

Senior counsel Bernard Condon, for the families of ten of the dead, said the key question continuing to haunt the families was: “Why did so many die in this fire? And what in the name of God was going on that allowed this accumulation of events ... that turned that place into a prison that people couldn’t get out of?”

Sean Guerin, senior counsel for families of nine of the dead, said “the cause of the fire is clear”. He referenced evidence from Dr Will Hutchinson, a forensic fire investigator, who said a “likely” cause was an electrical fault in the hot-press in the main bar adjacent to the west alcove where the fire was first seen inside the venue.

“It is a matter for you,” Mr Guerin told the jury, “to consider that the condition of the electrical installation on the terminal of the upper immersion unit on the hot water tank in the main bar was in a substantial way a cause of those deaths”

Seamus Ó Tuathail, senior counsel for the family of Marie Kennedy (17), called for a verdict of unlawful killing in her death. “Marie would not have died had exit 5 opened without delay” and had the 1934 bylaws on fire safety in places of public resort, in force at the time, been complied with.

Patricia Dillion, senior counsel for DCC, addressed the assertion the then Dublin Corporation had failed to stop the carpet tiles’ use. Planning permission granted in January 1978 had stipulated the walls be skimmed with Tyrolean plaster, she said, and no application was made to change this.

“There was no written communication ... in relation to changing the existing planning permission,” said Ms Dillon.

“On the night of this fire the only planning permission that was operative ... related to the original permission and compliance ... required Tyrolean plaster walls,” she said.

She added: “A local authority, a planning authority, is not a nurse maid for people who make planning applications. The Butterly interests were a for-profit business endeavour and Mr Butterly’s suggestion that there was some nursemaiding process in place ... is a matter that would not withstand any kind if scrutiny.”

The only verdict the jury had heard about so far was unlawful killing, she noted. “There are other verdicts that will be available.” Given the complexities of the issues before them the jurists might consider a narrative verdict.

Kitty Holland

Kitty Holland

Kitty Holland is Social Affairs Correspondent of The Irish Times

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