Father of boy killed in house fire lashes out in angry court tirade
The father of a Queensland boy who died after suffering horrific burns in a house fire lashed out in a furious tirade and told Coroner’s Court staff “who are you to ask these questions?”
The child’s death from extensive burns following a fire in 2017, which also seriously injured his younger brother, is being examined within the scope of a criminal investigation.
The inquest heard police found both burned children crying on the sofa, while the father was discovered taking a shower in another nearby house while holding a cigarette.
The family cannot be identified for legal reasons.
The boy’s father testified Tuesday that he at times shouted at the lawyer assisting coroner Kate Juhasz to “stop asking me stupid questions you know the answers to” and “please ask the questions without bullshit.”
The night of the fire, the father recalled, the boys acted like it was “calling it a day.”
“They were too tired to fight me,” he said, confirming that they went to bed early.
He told the court he did not initially know there was a fire when he woke up, describing a glow and a flickering light in the nursery.
“I burst into the room to see what was going on, to see why the kids were standing,” he said.
The father said he saw a fire in the room and told the children to get up.
“This is where I get confused. I opened that door… it exploded,” he said, adding that the room quickly burst into flames.
The father told the inquest that he saw a fireball explode over his children.
During this evidence, he had another outburst at Juhasz: “Who are you to ask these questions?”
He later told Juhasz that he lived with the scars of what happened that night under his shirt.
In his previous statement, the father denied being an alcoholic. He disputed the mother’s claims that she was assaulted and burned his belongings four times during their relationship.
When asked about his relationship with his mother, the father told Juhasz that his mother made him uncomfortable. Then he asked if he had “done his homework.”
Audio of his phone calls with his new partner were heard in court; In these images, the father could be heard shouting at the children and telling them “shut up, I’m on the phone”.
After questions about his relationship with his children, the father told Juhasz, “It seems you don’t have children.”
“Does all of this have anything to do with it, or are we kicking the tires just to waste time?” he asked.
The father became increasingly agitated during the interrogation and asked Juhasz questions about his bodily functions and underwear.
Coroner Megan Fairweather intervened and reminded the father to listen to the questions.
The father began his statement by asking where he should sit. He couldn’t say his exact age: “42, 43, I don’t know, too old.”
When the interrogation began, he told Juhasz: “I spent thousands of dollars to erase these memories. I spent thousands of dollars on psychologists and hypnosis to erase these memories.”
The inquest previously heard the father claimed in an interview with police that he saved the children from the fire and then “went for a run around the house” but did not know why.
The children’s grandparents testified Tuesday that they heard a loud explosion while watching television that evening.
The grandmother told the court that at around 7.20pm, the boys entered her property, a few hundred meters from her home.
She said her son came screaming towards their house, told his grandfather to take the children, the house was on fire and to call Triple Zero.
He remembered the eldest boy walking next to his father and the youngest on his father’s arm.
“They’re walking independently, but they’re screaming and yelling and crying uncontrollably,” he said, adding that the boys had “blisters upon blisters.”
The grandmother said the eldest child was crying but didn’t make any noise afterward.
He said he called Triple Zero several times to get help from paramedics after realizing firefighters weren’t needed because the house was gone.
The grandmother disputed Juhasz’s suggestion that she told the student paramedic that he should have encouraged her son to go back home to pick up the children.
The inquest previously heard that the surviving boy made several statements after the fire, including “my father burned me in the fire” and “my father was stupid, he tried to kill me and he tried to kill me”. [my brother]”.
He stated that he blew out the candle three times and “started a big fire” and that he felt guilty for his brother’s death, describing him as “now a black-purple butterfly”.
The boys’ mother told the inquest last week that their father had previously threatened to set her on fire when she tried to leave him.
He also said that until today, the father has not said what caused the fire and has told inconsistent stories about how the fire started.
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Cloe Read is the Brisbane Times’ crime and courts reporter.Connect with: X or email.
