Backpacker told 'leave fire escape open'

Fifteen people died in the blaze at the hostel

A court in Australia has heard the man accused of starting a hostel fire in which 15 people died told a British backpacker to leave the fire escape open less than two hours before the disaster.

Two young women from south Wales were among those who died in the blaze last June.

Survivor Lisa Duffy, from Kent, was one of a string of survivors appearing before a Brisbane magistrate hearing committal proceedings against itinerant fruitpicker Robert Long.

Long, 37, is charged with setting fire to the Palace Backpackers Hostel at Childers in Queensland and with murdering two of the 15 victims Australian twins, Stacey and Kelly Slarke, 22.

Robert Long is accused of starting the fire

Natalie Morris, 28, from Cefn Coed near Merthyr Tydfil, and 22-year-old Sarah Williams from Aberfan were among six Britons who died in the blaze.

Ms Duffy, 27, told the court via a telephone hook-up that on the night of the fire she spoke with Long about 2300 GMT when he told her he had lung cancer and had only two months to live.

"At the beginning of the week he said that he wanted to blow his head off," she said.

But she said when she spoke to him on the night of the fire, Long told her he had decided to make the most of his time left in Childers.

"He spoke quite a lot," she said.

Sarah Williams: Died in the blaze

"He talked mainly about himself."

He had also said he disliked one of the hostel's managers, and an Asian backpacker who was staying there.

As she walked up the stairs of the hostel with her boyfriend to go to bed two hours before the fire she said Long "told me to leave the back fire escape door open."

"He wanted to get into the building ... to beat up Yishal. He was pretty intent on getting in."

About 90 minutes later she woke when someone banged on her door.

"When we got out of the door, everything was engulfed," Duffy said.

"We couldn't breathe. Nothing was marked at all."

"During the day, there was a fire exit sign on the top of the door but the smoke was thick you couldn't look up anyway."

The committal hearing will determine if sufficient evidence exists to commit Long for trial.

He has not been required to plead.