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

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, continued to press home the families’ legal teams’ closing arguments that the jury return this verdict.

On day 111 of the inquests into the 48 deaths as a result of a fire in the early hours of February 14th, 1981, Ms Campbell said “sunlight” shed in evidence on what happened that night 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.

Addressing the jury, she said: “If you find that the fire spread rapidly and lethally because of the presence of those highly flammable carpet tiles that should never have been there; if you find that an absence of an evacuation plan to herd young people to safety; if you find the exit doors were locked and chained and obstructed and that those who desperately wanted to use them were delayed by efforts to force them open; and if you find that steel plates on the toilet windows prevented access to oxygen and escape … those were all failings to a very high degree to take action that was necessary to avoid substantial injury”.

It was “equally 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 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 Butlery 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?”

“I ask you look very carefully at those contributory factors [and ask] whether some of those – locked doors, carpet tiles, lack of training – fit into that category of being substantial cause of death and such a substantial failure as to amount to an unlawful killing.”

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