THE JURY IN the Stardust fire inquest has heard that the venue’s main entrance was closed to stop those who had escaped from re-entering, as people trapped inside could be heard “screaming and banging”.
Linda Bishop, who was 18 at the time, also told how as panic told hold and the crowds rushed towards the door, she was pushed up against the wall and believed she would not escape the blaze, which killed 48 people in 1981.
In her evidence to the jury at the Coroner’s Court today, Bishop said: “I didn’t think we were going to be able get out … I think I’d given up at that stage, I thought: “We’re not going anywhere.”
She said she and a friend eventually made it out into a hallway near the main entrance where there was no fire, and they could breathe.
However, she said soon after: “The lights went out, people were falling. The smoke and the fumes filled the hallway then, so it was very hard to breathe.”
She said the hallway was “just full of people” and after she made it outside, her friend said: “Look, they’re closing the doors”.
Bishop said this “wasn’t very long at all” after they had escaped.
In her original statement made in 1981, she said she realised “they were trying to keep the people outside out as they were trying to get back in”.
In her direct evidence today, she said those outside were looking for “brothers and sisters and friends” outside and described the scene as “mayhem”.
Asked by Brenda Campbell KC, representing a number of families of the deceased, if the doors were closed at a time when people were still inside, Bishop said: “Oh absolutely, we could hear people screaming, we could hear people in the toilets banging.”
In her evidence to the inquest, Bishop said that she initially thought the fire could be easily contained as it looked to her that there was “just one seat on fire”.
She said she was a regular patron of the Stardust and would always have sat in the area that was closed off on the night, the West Alcove, “every week”. Asked by Coroner Dr Myra Cullinane how often she had seen the West Alcove closed off, Bishop said the night of Friday, 13 February 1981 was the first time.
Bishop told counsel that it had been noticeably cold in the building on the night of 13 February and she and her friends had asked the bouncers to turn the heating on.
She said the night proceeded as normal until she felt a blast of heat shortly after 1.30am. “I suddenly got a shudder, that’s the only way I can describe it,” she said.
The witness said to this day, a blast of heat from a shop heater is a “trigger” of the memory. “If I go in anywhere and a blow heater hits me, I’m back,” she said.
She said she then went back over to the dancefloor with her friend and a couple of minutes later she saw the fire, which she at first believed was capable of being contained.
Bishop said she was dancing with her back to where they had been sitting when her friend pointed and said: “Look, there’s a fire”.
She said initially, people weren’t panicking but “then suddenly” the crowd started to panic and “run in all directions”.
She said as they tried to get to the door, there were “too many people” and they were pushed back against the wall. The whole area was blazing, Bishop said, and the flames were starting to “roll across the ceiling”.
“Everything just happened so quick … the ceiling over our head was in flames and I could hear it crackling… the fire was so noisy. We didn’t know there was an exit in the kitchen…I didn’t think we were going to be able get out.”
Bishop said her friend grabbed her by the wrist and “dragged me out”.
The jury also heard that after giving evidence at the Tribunal of Inquiry in 1981 before Mr Justice Ronan Keane, Phelim Kinahan, the floor manager of the Stardust at the time, allegedly said to Bishop in April 1981 “you hung us”.
Asked by Campbell if she knew why he had spoken to her in particular, Bishop said she believed it related to the evidence she had given that she and her friends, who were aged between 16 and 18, had no trouble getting into the Stardust and had no trouble getting served a drink.
Bishop agreed that in reply she said: “You hung yourselves.”
The next day she gave another statement to gardaí.
The inquest also heard that in a statement given in 1981, a part-time doorman said that on his last Sunday night on duty at the Stardust, two exits in the club remained chained and locked all night.
Before it was read to the jury, Harry Fitzsimons told the inquest he did not remember making a statement in 1981. However, after the account was read into the record at the inquest taking place in the Pillar Room of the Rotunda Hospital, he confirmed to Coroner Dr Myra Cullinane that he did not take issue with any of the details contained in it.
In his deposition, Fitzsimons said on the nights when discos took place in the club the doors would remain locked until 11.30pm or midnight.
He confirmed to Michael O’Higgins SC, representing some of the families of the deceased, that exit six had been damaged recently and had to be “nailed up” until it was fixed.
Asked by O’Higgins if this had caused him any discomfort, the witness said it “didn’t at the time”.
When O’Higgins queried if he had ever seen people trying to get into the club, the former doorman said he had witnessed it on about a half a dozen occasions.
Counsel asked the witness if it was “disproportionate” to lock hundreds of people into a building “like a fortress” in order to keep “half a dozen fellas” out. “Would it be right to lock everybody in and leave six out? No it wouldn’t be right,” Fitzsimons replied.
“Did any of the staff ever say what’s going to happen here if something goes wrong?” O’Higgins asked.
“No, I never heard it being said,” said the witness.
“I know hindsight is a very valuable thing … but there didn’t seem to be a safety culture at the time?” counsel queried. “There wasn’t. I wasn’t there on the night but what happened on the night should never have happened,” the former doorman added.
In his statement, Fitzsimons said he always covered the disco on Friday and Sunday night and there would normally be seven doormen on duty in the club on these nights.
He said emergency doors number four, five, six and one would be locked when they came on duty. If there was a cabaret-type show on the locks on the exit doors would be opened as soon as they took up duty, he said, usually before the patrons arrived.
However, on the nights when discos were held on Friday and Sunday, the doors would remain locked until 11.30pm or midnight. The witness said the decision as to when these doors should be unlocked would usually be taken by the head doormen and they would usually do it themselves.
Fitzsimons said the last Sunday night that he worked the disco at the Stardust he was in the partitioned off area overseeing two exits, exit number 1 and exit number six. He said it was his job to ensure that no one opened them.
He said because that area was not being used that night these exits remained chained and locked all night.
In his statement, Fitzsimons also said that when all the patrons were in the front main door, exit number two was closed and locked. He said the key was left in the lock and there was always at least one doorman there and usually two, adding “there is no way they would take the key out of the door and leave it”.
He said the roof at the rear of the area beside exit six had been broken a few weeks previously and he did not know if this had been repaired.
The inquest will resume next Tuesday.
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