Stardust patron recalls seeing people on fire and tells how steel plate hampered rescue

The Stardust Inquest is now moving into a new phase to hear the evidence from those who attended the Stardust ballroom as patrons on the night of the fire. File photo: Sasko Lazarov / RollingNews.ie

A patron at the Stardust nightclub has described how he heard the screams of people trapped inside the toilets as he attempted to break the windows and told how his efforts were futile because there was “a steel plate” in the way.

James Cumiskey, who was just 18 at the time, cried as he told the inquest on Tuesday: “There was nothing I could have done”. The inquest has previously heard how steel plates were welded over the toilet windows approximately six weeks before the blaze.