Almost one year ago Gold Coast chef Chris Porter woke to a blood-curdling scream. His friend, fellow backpacker Mia Ayliffe Chung, had been stabbed. She later died from her wounds, while Mr Porter is still struggling to cope with what he witnessed
GOLD Coast chef Chris Porter has seen and heard things he wishes he could forget.
But almost a year after surviving the North Queensland Home Hill hostel horror – where his friend and popular young Surfers Paradise waitress Mia Ayliffe Chung was brutally killed – he cannot.
He cannot forget the bloodcurdling screams which woke him on the top bunk of their shared dorm room as she was being attacked just metres away.
He cannot forget the “gruesome” sight of the 20-year-old bubbly beauty’s injuries.
He cannot forget staring into the eyes of the man accused of her killing.
Speaking publicly this week for the first time about that bloody night in August last year which also claimed the life of fellow Englishman and backpacker Tom Jackson, Mr Porter said he struggles to sleep, has regular nightmares and is haunted by thoughts of things he could have done differently.
He is lucky to be alive himself, fracturing his right ankle and crushing his heels in a leap from a first-floor balcony before desperately fleeing to the road where a passing motorist spirited him to safety.
Telling his story in a Surfers Paradise cafe, Mr Porter recalled the fateful moment in the dorm room: “I heard screaming … you wake up thinking ‘what the f**k? It took me five seconds to go ‘what’s going on?’…a good five seconds.
“My reaction was to jump out of bed. I remember looking into his eyes, straight into his eyes.”
MEETING ‘MIMI’ Chris Porter, 22, from a village in Kent, England, came to the Gold Coast on the recommendation of an older brother here working on one of the pub crawls in Surfers Paradise.
He met Miss Ayliffe Chung, from Derbyshire and known as “Mimi” to her friends, at a house party in the Hilton Surfers Paradise where she lived. They would often cross paths when he led Hangover pub crawl tours several nights a week into Orchid Avenue nightclub Bedroom where she was a VIP waitress.
Mr Porter, who has previously posted online about knowing “instantly she was something special”, said the well-travelled, free-spirited Miss Ayliffe-Chung could turn anything into a joke.
“She was just funny, a funny person. It was impossible to dislike her,” he said.
If he was partying in Bedroom at one of its VIP booths they would request her as their waitress every time: “We upset another girl once because we said can we swap you for Mia?”
Two Brits living in the midst of the Glitter Strip party zone and having an absolute ball.
But to extend the fun – and work visas – they were required to undertake 88 days of farm work and decided to do it together with another Glitter Strip Brit and bartender Sam Gostelow.
The path leading to Miss Ayliffe Chung’s death is full of cruel twists of fate – the trio were going to a Sunshine Coast farm originally until she pulled the pin because they thought the boss sounded odd and said the farm only had work for her.
So they went to Home Hill near Townsville instead, booking in at Shelley’s Backpackers.
Mr Gostelow wouldn’t make the flight, later saying it was one time in his life where disorganisation worked out in his favour.
Miss Ayliffe Chung barely made the flight either after a huge leaving drinks, partying until the sun came up.
“In the morning, she was very close to not going,” Mr Porter recalls. “And I think it was only because I said if we don’t go now, we’ll never go.”
She slept the whole way on the train to Brisbane, on the floor of the airport and on the flight to Townsville.
FARM WORK They were put to work the morning after arriving removing rocks from the path of a sugar cane harvester. It was easy, two minutes off sitting around, one minute on.
Mr Porter was transferred to backbreaking work picking ripe melons onto a fast moving conveyor belt. He lasted just over two days, telling a supervisor who went “ballistic” when you missed any to “get stuffed” before walking off the job.
The pair got through the first week but Mr Porter was doubting he’d last 88 days while she was constantly reassuring him and keeping his spirits up.
“She would go ‘Don’t worry about it, it’ll be all right’. I remember her going ‘We’ve done a week already’.”
That was all they would do.