Father found in ‘shower with cigarette in his hand’ after house fire that killed boy

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, 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 recalled that he had been at the property some weeks earlier for an unrelated matter. He knew the boys’ father, and had spoken to him previously, he said.

Rumford 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, and unrecognisable as the same children he had seen before.

He 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,” he said.

“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.

He recalled that the father’s mother had reported seeing her son’s property on fire after hearing a loud bang that evening.

Bell, the other police officer, told the court he recalled speaking to the father, who claimed he had just woken up to find the house on fire.

The court heard the father suggested the mother was “probably responsible”, but said he did not remember anything.

Bell said he could not recall anyone attending to the children, and said the father was disconnected and not doing anything a father would normally do, such as calming or reassuring the children.

A paramedic, who had been in the job for almost 15 years, told the court the scene was very confronting.

“I haven’t been to another job that’s been anywhere near as bad as what this one was. The emotional response as I walked in was something I hadn’t experienced before,” he said.

He recalled the boys sitting with their knees up to their chests and their heads down.

Another paramedic, who was a student at the time, recalled how one boy was quieter and unresponsive, whereas the other was crying and shivering.

“I can recall the crying and sounds the younger child was making, and I recall them not having any part of their body unburned,” she said.

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.

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