I N F A M O U S   I N M A T E S

JOHN STUART and JAMES FINCH
Two of Boggo Road’s more notorious inmates were John Stuart and James Finch. In 1973, fifteen people died when two drums of petrol were ignited in the foyer of the Whiskey Au Go-Go nightclub in the inner Brisbane suburb of Fortitude Valley. The two men were convicted of what was Australia’s worst mass murder until the Martin Bryant killing spree in 1996. Over a two-day period in April of 1996, Bryant shot and killed 35 people in the southern Australian state of Tasmania. Finch and Stuart had been employed as gunmen by underworld figures that were attempting to control prostitution and gambling in Brisbane at the time. Both men were extremely hardened individuals. They both proclaimed their innocence over the bombing, stating that a corrupt police force had set them up. Finch bit of his little finger of his right hand to protest his innocence. It is claimed that this effort took nearly four hours of gnawing before it came off. Stuart was just as extreme in his efforts to draw attention to his case. He swallowed wire crosses that would tear the stomach lining open, and once even tried to sew his lips together with wire. Stuart also on occasions escaped from his cell and involved himself in roof top demonstrations proclaiming his innocence. Stuart died on New Year’s Day of 1979. It is suggested that Stuart intended to carry out a hunger strike just before he was found dead. An inquest into his death failed to determine the cause. In February of 1988, Finch was paroled and deported back to England, his country of birth. He was reported to have been working of all things, as a security guard.