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Moments after two Queensland boys were badly injured in a house fire, police found their father nearby having a shower and smoking a cigarette, with a dazed expression and unresponsive to their questions, a court has heard.
On Monday, an inquest began into the 2017 case, in which one of the boys died after suffering burns to 95 per cent of his body.
The family cannot be identified for legal reasons.
The boys had been living on the rural property when the fire ripped through one of two houses on the land.
Two police officers made their way to the scene, overcoming problems with communication and reception.
Sergeant Peter Rumford told the court he and his partner, Senior Constable Andrew Bell, made it to the property quickly.
Once on the property, which had two houses, Rumford and Bell were flagged down by the boys’ grandmother, who told them the pair were badly injured.
“I remember jumping out of the car as quick as I could,” Rumford told the court, recalling how he thought he saw blood on the patio.
“I also remember hearing, just wailing. It sounded like children,” he said, adding it was a sound like nothing he had heard before.
He made his way up a set of stairs into the second property, where the children were on a couch, wrapped in a towel or a sheet, he said.
Rumford asked where the boys’ father was, and he was told he was in the shower.
“That’s where I saw [the father] standing in the shower. From memory, he was just sort of standing there.
“I remember he had a cigarette in his hand … He had just a dazed, stunned look on his face. I remember seeing he had some burns on his hands and forearms. Maybe even his face a little bit.”
Rumford said he tried to engage in conversation with the father as to what happened.
“It sticks into my mind that he didn’t really respond or provide me any information.”
When asked about the father’s demeanour, Rumford said: “I found it a little bit peculiar why his two sons were screaming and wailing, so to speak, and he was standing in the shower having a cigarette.”
Rumford said he felt extremely concerned for the boys’ welfare, and from his initial assessment, the father did not appear to be badly injured.
The policeman recalled how the father’s mother had reported seeing her son’s property on fire after hearing a loud bang that evening.
Bell told the court he recalled speaking to the father at one point during the incident, where the father claimed he had just woken up, and the house was on fire.
The father told Bell he did not remember anything, the court heard.
Bell said he could not recall anyone attending to the children.
Counsel assisting the coroner Kate Juhasz told the court distressing vision of the night showed the boys, but it would not be played to the court.
One boy died the following day in Brisbane’s children’s hospital.
Coroner Megan Fairweather is expected to probe several factors, including how the fire started, the family environment and the relationship between the boys’ parents, and the police investigation.
The inquest is scheduled to run until next week.
More witnesses are expected on Monday afternoon.
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Cloe Read is the crime and court reporter at Brisbane Times.Connect via X or email.From our partners
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