Footage of a man leaping for his life out of a window to escape the deadly Loafers Lodge fire has been played to a jury.
The footage was produced in the High Court at Wellington this afternoon amid 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.
Several residents of Loafers Lodge have given evidence about their escape from the building as it went up in flames.
Faamatala Sili watched the video of his own escape while sitting in the witness box. The grainy footage shows him climbing out of his fourth-storey window and dropping to the roof of a nearby building with a loud crash, having jumped over the alleyway between.
“My leg was sprained, there was a cut there,” he told the court.
“Up until now I have trouble standing on it for like a long time. Pain starts to develop. It’s been an ongoing problem ever since.”
He described hearing someone else calling for help immediately after he jumped.
“I think like a couple seconds after I jumped I heard an old man screaming for help,” he said.
“Just saying, ‘help me, someone help me’.”
He said it sounded as if the man may have been on the same floor he had been on.
“It sounded like he was getting weak and really desperate for someone to save him.”
Sili said it was a “horrible sound”.
He then described crawling along the roof to catch the attention of rescuers, who were able to get help to bring him down.
A photo then shown to the jury showed Sili afterwards sitting barefoot in a brightly lit room with a bandage on his foot and crutches under his arm. He confirmed he had no shoes on when he fled the flames.
Other residents have given evidence, including Glen Cross who lived for years on level four of the building.
He spoke of some of his interactions with a couple of the people killed in the incident, saying he used to sit on the roof and chat with Kenneth Barnard about philosophy, religion and even quantum physics.
He also spoke of victim Liam Hockings, who he had spoken to occasionally.
“He quite often had his headphones on and he’d sing loudly to himself while he was down in the kitchen,” Cross said.
“I found him to be quite a pleasant person.”
The night of the fire, Cross opened his door to see a “wall of smoke”. He dropped down and crawled to an exit, managing to make his way up to the roof, where he met other survivors.
They were rescued by firefighters using an aerial appliance.
“I was relieved to be on the ground but sort of numb, I suppose ... it was surreal. Didn’t feel like it was really happening.”
A statement from another resident, Tim Hunter, was read by the prosecutor.
Hunter said he had woken that night to the sound of alarms and smoke filling his room.
“I was gasping for air when I woke up. There were alarms going off everywhere. That’s the first thing I remember,” his statement said.
“I was suffocating and it was overwhelming,” he said. He was able to get out his window, climb to the roof and was rescued with Cross and another resident.
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.