The final moments of one of the five men killed in the Loafers Lodge hostel fire have been played to a jury.
The transcript of Liam Hockings’ 111 call is suppressed, but it can be reported that he is believed to have died during or shortly after the call.
The distressing audio was played alongside evidence of Fire and Emergency dispatcher David Barker, whose statement about the incident was read out by the Crown.
In the statement, Barker said he took the call from Hockings, who was living at the boarding house in Newtown, Wellington at the time of the inferno, about 12.42am.
“Liam was on what he described as a mezzanine floor on the third level and could not get out due to the smoke being too dense,” Barker said. “Liam also mentioned he had a sore throat.
“I was reassuring him that someone was coming. He was still responsive but was coughing,” Barker said.
The Crown only played the first eight minutes and eight seconds of the audio, though the actual call was nearly an hour long.
After the first eight minutes of the call, Barker said Hockings was unresponsive, coughing sporadically, and would not respond to his questions.
After 49 minutes on the call, Barker’s colleagues recommended he hang up and try to call Hockings back, in the hopes the ringing of the phone might alert him or help potential rescuers find him.
The phone rang without answer. Barker tried again 30 minutes later with the same result.
The court has also heard today about the last movements of the five deceased, with CCTV shown to the jury of the men entering their mezzanine level rooms for the final time.
Hockings was the only one of the five who had evacuated the building earlier in the night, when a fire was lit under a couch on the floor below.
He fled the building in less than two minutes after the alarm went off, then returned once the alarm was silenced. He entered his room for the last time at 10.51pm.
The man accused of lighting the fatal fire, who has interim name suppression, has been on trial for more than two weeks.
He was charged with two counts of arson and five counts of murder, but Justice Peter Churchman told the jury today one of the arson charges had been dismissed on the basis it “just complicates the issue”.
Removal of the arson charge relating to the couch - which was extinguished before it could fully take hold - meant the jury could focus properly on the main arson charge for the fire which killed the victims.
The 50-year-old defendant has raised a defence of insanity, with his counsel referring to his diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia and that he had not been taking his medication before lighting the fire.
He does not dispute lighting the fire that killed Mike Wahrlich, Liam Hockings, Peter O’Sullivan, Melvin Parun and Kenneth Barnard at Loafers Lodge on May 16, 2023.
One psychiatrist has given evidence so far in the trial, saying while the defendant was clearly very unwell, he did not believe he was insane at the time of the offending.
The jury is expected to hear from several more psychiatrists later in the trial.
Crown prosecutor Stephanie Bishop said for the defendant to claim a defence of insanity, he needed to show he had a disease of the mind that at the time rendered him incapable of knowing his actions were morally wrong, based on commonly accepted standards.
It is accepted by the man’s legal team that he understood the nature and quality of his actions, which is the other branch of an insanity defence.
He had been hospitalised for schizophrenia relapses eight times in his life before the fire, including in a mental health facility in Auckland in March and April 2023.
He absconded during an unescorted trip from the facility in late April, stopped taking his medication, and moved down to Wellington, where he went on to stay at Loafers Lodge for a week before setting the fire.
His symptoms documented across the past 25 years include hearing derogatory voices, hallucinations and suffering from persecutory delusions such as believing his food had been poisoned, contaminated or interfered with.
The trial continues.
Melissa Nightingale is a Wellington-based reporter who covers crime, justice and news in the capital. She joined the Herald in 2016 and has worked as a journalist for 10 years.