Qld: Last ditch bid to abort trial of backpackers fire accused

AAP General News (Australia)
04-10-2001
Qld: Last ditch bid to abort trial of backpackers fire accused

By Rosemary Desmond

BRISBANE, April 10 AAP - Defence counsel for the man accused of the Childers backpackers'
blaze today launched a last-ditch bid to have his trial aborted.

Robert Paul Long, 38, is charged with two counts of murder and one of arson following
the fire at the Palace Backpackers Hostel in the south-east Queensland town of Childers,
south of Bundaberg, on June 23 last year.

Fifteen young people died in the blaze, among them four Australians.

Both the defence and the prosecution argued that Long's trial should be heard in Brisbane,
not in Bundaberg.

But today, Supreme Court Justice Peter Dutney decided that the trial should go ahead
in Bundaberg as originally planned.

"I decline to exercise my discretion in favour of a change of venue," Justice Dutney
told the court.

Defence barrister Craig Chowdhury responded by applying for a permanent stay of indictment
on the grounds that the publicity surrounding the case had already prejudiced the trial.

Mr Chowdhury told reporters outside the court that the Supreme Court was due to hold
sittings in Bundaberg from mid-May but he believed that Long's trial was unlikely to go
ahead at that time.

He said a special sitting would probably have to be arranged in the second half of the year.

He expected to bring the application for the permanent stay of indictment before the
Supreme Court in a month's time and declined to comment further.

The prosecution had also argued that moving the trial to Bundaberg would be a costly
exercise involving the travel and accommodation costs of 161 witnesses, 120 of whom lived
outside the Bundaberg area and several who lived overseas.

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