31 Jul 2018

Man who made 'homebake' heroin present at man's death

11:48 am on 31 July 2018

A man who died after a suspected drug overdose was with a man known to make "homebake" heroin at the time of his death, a coronial inquest has heard.

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The man, who cannot be named due to an interim name suppression order, lost consciousness in a council flatting complex on 14 November 2013, and died in hospital later.

The man's father told the court he had been drinking alcohol that November afternoon and first picked up on his son's state when he noticed him lying motionless on his bed.

He said he tried to shake him awake, even slapping his face, but nothing worked so he called 111.

In this recorded call, played to the court, his father was heard speaking to the ambulance call taker in a distraught manner before being talked through CPR.

Another person was heard entering the room and speaking with the father, before the man tells the call taker he thinks his son had taken heroin.

The father confirmed this person was a man he had met in rehab, who'd lived with him in the flat for two weeks and manufactured synthetic heroin, known as "homebake" during that time.

Detective Senior Sergeant Geoff Baber said CCTV footage pulled from cameras in the flatting complex showed the man left the father's flat with a clear plastic bag minutes after an ambulance was called.

Mr Baber said the man returned to the flat empty-handed and this is when he came into the father's room to find the father doing CPR on his son.

They had a heated exchange where the man told the father his son had gone and taken "the gear", by "the gear" he meant "the drugs".

Detective Senior Sergeant Baber said police never recovered the plastic bag the man was seen with. They didn't know about it until several days later when they asked for the CCTV footage.

Several family members testified the young man's drug use traced back to his younger years.

He used cannabis from the age of 14 and things deteriorated when he decided he wanted to get to know his estranged father, who was known to abuse alcohol and drugs.

The young man started using heavy drugs, sometimes intravenously, and became erratic and at times violent.

He was supplied drugs by his father, but his father insisted he had never injected his son with drugs or ever seen the other man inject his son with drugs.

The father admitted battling drug addiction for years but said he was ashamed of it and did not want that life for his son.

In an emotional outburst yesterday afternoon he said he wished he had administered his son the drugs, so that he could have picked up on his state sooner.