Video of residents discovering a fatal fire taking hold in Loafers Lodge has been played to a jury, along with a harrowing 111 call of a man trapped in his smoke-filled room.
The recording of the emergency call was so distressing, the judge allowed the man who made the call to be taken out of the courtroom so he did not have to listen to it.
The evidence was produced in the High Court at Wellington this morning during the murder trial for the man accused of killing five people by starting the blaze.
The 50-year-old defendant, who has interim name suppression, has denied five counts of murder and two of arson for the fire on May 16, 2023.
The dead are Mike Wahrlich, Liam Hockings, Peter O’Sullivan, Melvin Parun and Kenneth Barnard.
The Crown earlier told the jury it is understood the defendant does not dispute that he lit the fire, but will likely raise a defence of insanity. The Crown suggests he lit the fire because he did not like living at the hostel.
The jury today saw multiple CCTV clips showing the moment residents discovered a deadly fire was beginning to devour parts of the hostel’s third floor.
In one of the clips, resident Jay Jay Pickering is cooking dinner shortly after midnight as smoke slowly starts to fill the kitchen and lounge area.
He and another resident, Raymond Lauder, go to investigate and discover smoke billowing in the hallway.
“Where did that come from bro?” Pickering is heard saying.
He and Lauder begin knocking on doors and calling out to others.
“There’s a fire, brother,” Pickering can be heard yelling.
He told the court he got one of the building’s fire hoses and got down on one knee trying to spray the flames before giving up and fleeing the building.
In other clips, Lauder is seen talking with other residents earlier in the night after a different fire was discovered and extinguished under the couch.
Later, he is seen speaking to a man in a high-vis jacket, who goes into his room. This man is one of the people who died.
Lauder told the court he did not plan on going back to sleep after the first fire.
“My instincts were screaming it wasn’t over, so I stuck around.”
He was going to the kitchen to make a coffee so he could stay awake all night when he and Pickering discovered the second fire.
“Two rooms were hard out on fire. I tried to open them in case anyone was in there; I couldn’t,” he said.
Further CCTV clips show a scramble in the hallway as residents start to evacuate through the smoke, calling “get out, get out” to others.
After this, the court heard from witness Tui Saili, who made a 30-minute call to 111 as he was trapped in his room.
He can be heard through the call asking dispatchers for help, and saying, “I don’t want to die like this”.
“Get me out of here, please. I can’t breathe,” he says repeatedly.
A few minutes into the recording being played to the jury, Crown prosecutor Grant Burston asked for it to be paused so he could check on the witness, who was hunched over so low he could not be seen in the witness box.
Saili said he was fine to continue, and the recording resumed playing.
Eventually, though, Justice Peter Churchman asked again for the recording to stop, and Saili was removed from the room.
“I’ve arranged for the witness to just wait outside. He was clearly quite distressed,” the judge told the jury.
The remainder of the audio made for difficult listening, as Saili tells the dispatcher, “I’m dead”.
“You’re not, you’re still with me,” the dispatcher responds. “You’re going to be all right, Tui, we’re going to get to you shortly.”
Saili eventually manages to escape through a skylight window and is rescued from the roof.
Yesterday, the jury was shown a video of resident Faamatala Sili jumping out of a fourth-storey window on to the roof of a building below to escape the fire.
Earlier this week, the jury heard from multiple Fire and Emergency New Zealand staff who worked to battle the fire or rescue occupants on the night.
Multiple firefighters showed visible emotion, some shedding tears or having to take heavy pauses while giving their evidence as they recounted the events.
Many spoke of their narrow escape from a dangerous phenomenon called “flashover”, in which the fire becomes so hot that all combustible materials in the area spontaneously ignite.
Several firefighters spoke of seeing signs that flashover was imminent and having to evacuate the building despite knowing there were still people unaccounted for inside. They made it out of harm’s way with moments to spare before the flashover happened.
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.