Anderson v Hotel Capital Trading Pty Limited

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF NEW SOUTH WALES COMMON LAW DIVISION

20438/01 ANDERSON v HOTEL CAPITAL TRADING PTY LIMITED

1 HIS HONOUR: The plaintiff, Leif Scott Anderson, is something over twenty-five years' old and sues the defendant in respect of an incident that occurred in the early morning of 9 June 1998 about a month or so short of his twentieth birthday. The plaintiff was employed as a night auditor by the defendant at its hotel in Kings Cross, having been in that employment for about five weeks. The plaintiff commenced work at 11.30pm on Monday 8 June. A Mr Karu Yoganathan was also on duty on the same shift as the plaintiff. The manager, receptionist, security guard and bar staff had left the premises by 2am. 2 The following account of what then transpired is taken from the plaintiff's evidence. Some time later, and after the plaintiff had undertaken some routine chores, he answered a telephone call from room 312. The plaintiff was at that time at the reception desk. Karu was on his rounds. The plaintiff said that the male making the call told him that there was a problem with one of the lights in the room and asked if he could get someone to come up to the room and fix it. The plaintiff did not recognise the voice. He then went to the back of the reception area where there was a radio communicator that allowed him to speak to Karu and told him about the complaint, asking him to check it out. Karu said that he would. A little later on, the plaintiff said that he received a phone call from Karu asking him to come up to the room and help him with the light and told him to turn off the lights. The plaintiff did so and went up to the room. He knocked on the door. When the door opened, he saw a gloved hand waving him in. The person grabbed the plaintiff's arm, pulled him in, pushed him into the bed and knelt on him with his knee at his back. He then pulled the plaintiff up and said, "Oh, you are coming with me" and marched him towards the lift. He was armed with a handgun. When they got into the lift the man told him to go down to level 1 and the plaintiff pressed the button accordingly. The plaintiff said that, when they were in the lift, the other man vomited. They then walked down the stairs and into the back of the reception area. When he and the plaintiff got down to the ground floor he was ordered to turn off all alarms. The person told the plaintiff to give him all the money that was kept there. The only money in the back of the reception area was in the hotel float and the plaintiff gave the person that money. 3 The man asked the plaintiff if he could open the safety deposit boxes but the plaintiff said that he did not have the keys, only the guests did. The man then took a number of boxes themselves and put them in a large, long bag that he had with him. The plaintiff said that the man then saw the safe in the back of the reception area and demanded that the plaintiff open it. It had a combination lock and the plaintiff told him that he did not know it. The man demanded that the plaintiff take him "to your other safe". To do this, the plaintiff needed to open the door to the room in which it was kept with his keys. When access was gained the man sprayed the video camera in the room with paint from a can and, giving the plaintiff a power cutting tool, made him cut the locks. When the safe was opened, the plaintiff was directed to put the contents, a large number of yellow envelopes containing cash, into the man's bag but there were so many that the man also started to pack the bag. They then went back to the room where the plaintiff had been grabbed. When they were back inside, the man told the plaintiff to lie down between the two beds in the room, said, "Nothing against you personally", kicked the plaintiff's ribs hard and stomped on his hand. The plaintiff was taped around the head, mouth, hands and legs. 4 About forty minutes later, Karu (who had been tied up in the room's bathroom, and eventually freed himself) came out and untied the plaintiff and they had a conversation about what had occurred. Karu was bleeding from a wound in his head. They went down to reception and Karu called the police whilst the plaintiff called the general manager to let him know what had happened. A short time later the police and ambulance officers arrived and, after some preliminary examination, the plaintiff and Karu were taken to Kings Cross police station, where they made statements about what had happened. Approximately $80,000 was stolen. 5 As well as relatively minor bruising caused by the assaults which I have described, the plaintiff claims that he suffered from major headaches, depression and anxiety and was prone to inappropriate behaviour involving gambling, drunkenness, drug abuse and violence. Evidence was called that the plaintiff suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It is his case that, his judgment having been compromised by his illness, the plaintiff became a heroin user as a form of self-medication, and that this led to his taking a heroin overdose on 25 October 1999, as a result of which suffered significant brain injury. He remained in a coma for some three months, being cared for at the Westmead Hospital Brain Injury Unit. Since that time he suffers severe headaches, extreme anxiety and brain damage. Although he can walk with a frame or a walking stick, he is very unstable on his feet and spends most of his time in a wheelchair. He also suffers memory problems and has considerably lessened powers of concentration. It is obvious that the consequences of his heroin overdose, which are not in substance disputed, constitute the major part of the plaintiff's alleged injuries. 6 The defendant's case, in essence, has three limbs: firstly, it is alleged that, so far from the plaintiff being a victim of the robbery, he was an accomplice of the robbers; alternatively, (assuming the plaintiff to have been in fact a victim) the defendant was not negligent by not employing a security guard at the hotel at the time of the robbery, not giving any training to the plaintiff as to what to do in the circumstances to ensure he was secure and ensuring that security measures were in place at the time sufficient either to deter the robbery or protect the plaintiff - these being the particulars of the alleged negligence; thirdly, the plaintiff's heroin use was not caused by the post-traumatic stress disorder (assuming such a disorder arose from the effect of the robbery on him) and his overdose, in particular, was not either reasonably foreseeable or caused by the robbery. 7 It is obvious from the above brief description of the issues in this case, and it will become increasingly obvious as I deal with the evidence, that the plaintiff's credit is of crucial importance. The assessment of credit is almost always a very difficult task, especially where there is conflicting evidence as to critical matters from apparently credible witnesses. In this case, the plaintiff's undoubted brain damage has made the assessment of his honesty or otherwise even more difficult. For example, the plaintiff is functioning at or below the 0.6th percentile and he is operating more poorly than are over 99% of people of his age and education; on measures of the ability to learn novel information, the capacity to retain this material over time, and the Attention/Concentration index the plaintiff scored below the 1st percentile; and other tests of mental functioning demonstrated similar scores. Quite apart from the effect that this has had on his demeanour - although this will rarely be of significant utility - problems of concentration and memory mean that inconsistencies or apparently inconsistencies, both internal and with otherwise established facts, are or may be less significant than otherwise. (In making this assessment, I have borne in mind Dr Jungfer's warning that the impact of brain damage such as that suffered by the plaintiff can be over-emphasised.) In the result there are a number of important matters which I have been unable to resolve, the cumulative effect of which has been, because he carries the onus of proof, adverse to the plaintiff's case. 8 Before returning to an account of the relevant events following the robbery it is necessary to deal with some matters that had occurred during the plaintiff's immediately preceding employment. 9 In 1995 the plaintiff obtained the Higher School Certificate and, during the next year, was accepted into TAFE to undertake a certificate in Accommodation Services - Supervision. In late March 1997 the plaintiff obtained work as a night auditor on the front desk of the Sydney Huntley Inn at Gladesville. Whilst still in his first week of employment, at about 1am, two males walked in and jumped over the counter. At the point of a gun, the plaintiff took money out of the hotel's safe and put it in a bag held by one of the robbers. After the robbery he and a Mr Olivera, who was working there at the time, were immobilised with adhesive tape wrapped around their arms and legs. It was suggested that the plaintiff suffered some symptoms of PTSD after this robbery. I am prepared to accept that he was somewhat more guarded about aspects of his employment but the evidence does not support a conclusion that he suffered any psychological injury arising out of this event. 10 Sometime after the robbery on the Huntley Inn, and whilst the plaintiff still worked there, he met Lauren Brown and started to go out with her. The plaintiff said that Ms Brown's home situation was very difficult and that he became involved with a fraudulent credit card scheme (which he learnt from a man called Tommy whom he knew from TAFE) so that Ms Brown would have money for rent and could leave home. The scheme involved the plaintiff recording the details of customers' credit cards, using those details to order tickets to concerts and other events, having the tickets delivered to a post office box in the name of a flatmate of Ms Brown's and then selling the tickets to various persons. The amount ultimately involved was something over $1,000. In my view, neither the plaintiff's nor Ms Brown's evidence about this episode was candid: both sought to minimise their involvement in and responsibility for the offences. Although the plaintiff was, in part, motivated by a desire to help Ms Brown, his was the leading role and he did not scruple at using Ms Brown to avoid being identified with the frauds. On the other hand, I am quite sure that Ms Brown fully understood and participated in what was going on very shortly after she became involved. These conclusions naturally affect adversely the credibility of both. Ms Brown gave evidence that, during their relationship, the plaintiff was possessive and jealous and continually and irrationally violent. This behaviour was denied by the plaintiff. However, I think that, although Ms Brown significantly exaggerated this behaviour, the plaintiff was indeed irrationally threatening and violent on a number of occasions, certainly sufficient to demonstrate that that similar alleged behaviour after the Hotel Capital robbery was not provoked by its impact, though it may have been, for a time, one of the influences that contributed to its extent. A number of other instances of illegal and immature behaviour on the plaintiff's part when he was employed at the Huntley Inn were given in evidence by several witnesses, (including Ms Brown). They indicate that there were troubling elements in the plaintiff's attitudes to alcohol, drugs and honesty well before the robbery at the Hotel Capital. They were unknown to his family. The course of the later perceived chaos in the plaintiff's life was, I think, already well underway. 11 I should mention, whilst dealing with the period during which the plaintiff was employed at the Huntley Inn, that the defendant called evidence suggesting that the plaintiff was also a heavy drinker who behaved obnoxiously. Certainly there were occasions of foolishly excessive drinking and bad behaviour but the evidence does not justify the defendant's submission that the plaintiff was a binge drinker given to drunken aggression as distinct from merely acting out young male bravado, stupid and unattractive though this is. 12 Karu Yoganathan, the other night auditor at work with the plaintiff on the night of the robbery, gave evidence about the circumstances of the robbery. He made two statements to police about the matter, one on 9 June 1998 and the other on 6 July 1998. I did not regard his evidence as departing significantly from those statements and, because they were made shortly after the events in question, I think they are more likely to be reliable. Mr Yoganathan stated that he commenced his shift at 11pm on 8 July 1998 with the plaintiff and that by 11.30pm the other employees had left for the evening although the security guard worked until 2am on the morning of 9 June. Between 11.30pm and 1.45am on that morning the manager of the bar associated with the hotel deposited the balance of the bar sales in the safe in what was called the "banking room". This deposit was signed for by the security guard, Mr Yoganathan and the bar manager. At about 2.15am Mr Yoganathan started his rounds of the hotel from the 15th floor, working his way down. At about 2.25am, when he was on the 5th floor, contacted him by two-way radio and said, "Karu, room 312 has no light, on your way can you check it out?" Mr Yoganathan said that he continued on his rounds and, when he got to the 3rd floor, walked towards room 312. The door was open slightly and he knocked on it. The door opened and he saw that the room was dark, the person who opened the door staying behind it. Mr Yoganathan did not immediately enter the room, and after a few seconds, he saw a face peek around the corner of the door, wearing a child's plastic facemask in the shape of a cat. As soon as he saw this, he turned around and, being in the lift foyer, immediately pressed the lift call button. As he did so, a very tall man, about 6'6" tall, with medium build, wearing the cat's facemask, high kicked him to the right side of his head. 13 Mr Yoganathan fell to the ground and started screaming for help. The man continued to kick him in the back. The lift arrived and the man ran back into the room. Mr Yoganathan started to get into the lift but the man came back out and resumed kicking him. The man started to tape up Mr Yoganathan's mouth and eyes with wide adhesive tape on a roll. He also taped his wrist and lower arms together behind his back, and his ankles. Mr Yoganathan thinks that he must have blacked out because the next thing he recalled was kneeling in front of a commode with his head resting on the lid. The man was punching him in the back saying, "Think about your family, we won't harm you, you have to help". He responded, "Okay, what do you want?" Mr Yoganathan was then dragged from the bathroom into the main room and told to call "the other guy and say, 'I'm in trouble, please come immediately. Turn all the lights off and come up to the room immediately'". The man picked up the telephone, dialled for reception and held a phone to his ear. The plaintiff answered the phone and Mr Yoganathan said that he said, "I'm in trouble, please come immediately. Turn off all the lights and come to the room immediately". He said that he was "puffing for my breath" and that the plaintiff replied, "Okay". Mr Yoganathan was then dragged back into the bathroom and a plastic mask taped onto his face. He then heard a female swearing at him and saying, "Don't move". He realised that he was tied somehow to the commode because he could not move. He complained that he could not breathe and the female grabbed the mask and moved it from side to side to loosen it. He also complained about a sore hand and she loosened the tape around his wrists. He did not see this woman at any time. Mr Yoganathan said that, shortly after, he heard tapping at the door, heard it open and close and the plaintiff groaning in pain. He heard some faint talking but could not make out what was being said. About ten or fifteen minutes later, the door opened and closed and he could hear the plaintiff groaning and screaming. The female, who had been in the bathroom during this time left and, a few minutes later, he heard the door of the room open and close. Mr Yoganathan said that he waited about another fifteen minutes and, realising that he was alone, started to move his hands and eventually freed himself. He carefully opened the bathroom door and, as he entered the bedroom, saw the plaintiff lying face down on the door between the two single beds with tape around his eyes and mouth, his hands and ankles. Mr Yoganathan said that he suggested that they should leave the room lest the robbers return but the plaintiff said that he was told by them to stay in the room for an hour and not to leave. After a short time they attempted to call the police but the telephone did not operate. About twenty minutes later they left the bedroom and caught the lift down to reception where they saw the manager for the restaurant that was located on the 2nd floor of the hotel and an employee standing at the front doors, unable to enter the hotel. By this time the police arrived at the instance, it seems, of the restaurant manager who said that he called the police because he had been waiting a long time to get into the hotel and became suspicious. Mr Yoganathan told him what the plaintiff had related about what had happened to him and he went into the back room behind the reception area and saw that some of the guest security boxes were stolen and some were scattered on the floor, some open and emptied and others still locked. Although the night auditor's float was still there, the two receptionist's floats totalling about $1,700 had been stolen. 14 Mr Yoganathan mentioned some things that seemed suspicious in relation to the plaintiff's behaviour. Two or three days previously he was working with the plaintiff and saw him go through all the safety deposit boxes checking what was in them. Since night auditors are not required to check the safety deposit boxes and he had no reason for doing so, he thought this was strange. The plaintiff asked why some of the safety deposit boxes had keys and some did not, opened one of them and, pointing to a box inside it, asked what was in it. Mr Yoganathan told him that it was the bottle shop float. He said that the following morning he heard the plaintiff talking to one of the duty managers about the safety deposit boxes and the whereabouts of the keys. He also recalled that, on one of the shifts just prior to the incident, the plaintiff and he went to the safe room with the duty manager who placed some money in the safe. He heard the plaintiff asking about "the two things up there". The duty manager told him that one was a security camera. and the other a movement detector. (The plaintiff said that he was told later by the duty manager that someone had left the old film in the security camera so that it was not working on the night. This was not disputed. The defendant did not call the manager to give evidence. It is uncontested that Mr Ian Bell, the manager of the hotel, was unwell on 8 June and had left without changing the videotape which recorded the security camera images.) 15 Mr Yoganathan pointed out also that, since no one had actually checked into room 312, the phone display at reception would have shown no name when the call came through, but only the room number. 16 The defendant relies upon a number of circumstantial matters pointing to, it submitted, the plaintiff's involvement in this robbery. 17 The plaintiff said that for some little time the 3rd floor of the hotel had been allocated to maintenance and, when on a routine floor check at about 2.30am on 8 June 1998, he heard some noises in the fire stairs and in room 314 which, obviously, should have been empty. The plaintiff noted in the hotel's incident book that he heard that the television was on in the room and that when he stopped to listen he thought he heard a voice. He said that he went down the fire stairs and told Karu, who checked the computer system, which confirmed that no one had been booked into the room. The plaintiff said that he telephoned the room but there was no answer and when he went up to the room he entered it and found the television on but at a lower volume than he recalled from first hearing it. The television was on a circuit and could not be operated without the key tag in the power socket but no such tag was present and the room key was still at reception. He thought the situation was strange and said that, after telling Mr Yoganathan, the two men went up to the floor to check the room. However, no one was there and it did not appear that anything was missing. They locked the door and resumed their duties. The plaintiff and Mr Yoganathan are at odds as to whether both went to check room 314 on the night of the 8th. The defendant relies on the evidence of Mr Yoganathan that reception should never be left unattended and, indeed, told the plaintiff that he would not go to inspect room 314 for this reason. However, the incident book clearly states that both men left reception to check the room, an entry which would, in due course, be seen by the duty manager. Accordingly, I prefer the plaintiff's evidence to Mr Yoganathan's on this point. It may be that this occurrence was somewhat odd and possibly had something to do with the robbery on the next night but I do not see that this suggests that the plaintiff was involved in that robbery in any way, although I note the defendant's submission that this evidence indicated that the plaintiff was aware that the whole of the floor was, as I have mentioned, allocated to maintenance. However, the basis for this statement is somewhat unclear and it is not otherwise supported. The incident book merely stated that the plaintiff noticed that no one was staying on this floor when he started the shift. Mr Yoganathan confirmed in his evidence that the 3rd floor was "out of order" for repairs and renovations at the time but whether he knew this then or it was a later understanding is not clear to me. At all events, I do not think that much can be made of this point or that the failure of either the plaintiff or Mr Yoganathan to suspect that some unlawful activity was on foot because of what had happened on 8 June and the fact that a call was received from a room on the 3rd floor on 9 June amounts to very much. After all, Mr Yoganathan also had no such suspicion. The defendant submits that the plaintiff's failure to suspect any impending criminal activity suggests that he was an accomplice of the robbers. I do not think that the suggested inference is remotely justified. 18 In a cognate submission the defendant says that the failure of the plaintiff, when the initial phone call was made from the room, to interrogate the caller as to his identity, also indicates that he was an accomplice. I do not agree. I have no difficulty in accepting that the plaintiff simply assumed that the person was a guest. I think that the defendant's submission rather assumes more concentration than is likely to have been in place, especially at 2.30am. The defendant also relies on the circumstance that Mr Yoganathan says that he was asked to take the breakfast menu around, although the plaintiff denied that he asked him to do so on that night but rather that Mr Yoganathan undertook the task as part of their shared workload. I do not regard this inconsistency as significant. 19 More significant perhaps, is Mr Yoganathan's evidence that, at the instruction of the robber, he told the plaintiff after his capture, that he was "in trouble". This might well suggest danger or, of course, it may simply express some difficulty needing help. The plaintiff says that he was told, "I need your help". It is difficult to see why the robber would wish Mr Yoganathan to tell the plaintiff that he was in trouble and thus warn him about the possibility of a dangerous situation. Even less, if the robber were an accomplice of the plaintiff. If, therefore, Mr Yoganathan's recollection of this conversation is correct, it is rather more consistent with the plaintiff not being involved in the robbery rather than that he was an accomplice, as the defendant contends. As it happens, I am inclined to prefer the plaintiff's version because it is inherently more likely. The defendant also points to Mr Yoganathan's evidence that he was puffing and argues that this should have alerted the plaintiff to the presence of danger. The plaintiff conceded that he noticed that Mr Yoganathan sounded out of breath but said that he was not alarmed because the breathlessness may have been caused by walking along the corridor. The explanation is, of course, nonsense but I consider that it was simply an ex post facto supposition that came into the plaintiff's mind when he gave evidence. I do not think that the plaintiff has actually any recollection about what he thought might have been the reason for Mr Yoganathan's breathlessness, even if he actually noticed it, which I doubt. I do not believe that any reasonable person would have been likely to suspect that Mr Yoganathan was the victim of a crime then in progress. 20 The defendant submits that the plaintiff's turning off the reception lights as requested by Mr Yoganathan is also a suspicious circumstance. It is asserted that the hotel security was thereby compromised. I do not accept this submission. This is merely a straw in the wind. The defendant also submits that the fact that the plaintiff left reception unattended to answer Mr Yoganathan's call for assistance, which was against the hotel's policy, was a suspicious circumstance. I do not agree. The two men worked together, the hotel was not busy and there was no reason to think that their absence would be more than momentary. 21 Mrs Anderson, the plaintiff's mother, was called to give evidence on his behalf. I found her a generally reliable and honest witness although, of course, she was sympathetic to her son and no doubt wished to help him as much as possible. To some extent, she was an advocate for him but I do not believe that this affected the essential truthfulness of her evidence. Mrs Anderson said that when the plaintiff returned home on the morning of 8 June, he told her about finding the empty room on the third floor with the television on. He told her that both he and Mr Yoganathan had gone to check the room. This consistent statement, made before he commenced his shift on the following day, seems to me to confirm his account. Also significant, I thought, was Mrs Anderson's observation that the plaintiff conducted his night floor checks, which involved taking the breakfast menus off the door handles, by going from floor to floor down the fire stairs from which I infer that the alarm had been switched off or was not working. 22 The plaintiff said that Mr Yoganathan told him to turn off the alarms as well as the lights, whereas Mr Yoganathan mentions only the lights. The inherent likelihood is that the robbers would have wished the alarms to be turned off and, hence, that they would have instructed Mr Yoganathan to tell the plaintiff to do so. The turning off of the alarms is somewhat suspicious although the only alarms in the hotel were the fire stair alarms. The plaintiff gave an explanation which does not make sense but which I think was simply non-responsive to the question and aimed at a different issue. In the end, he said that he was just doing what he was told because Mr Yoganathan had been working there longer and was the senior of the two. I do not think that this explanation is inherently unlikely. Certainly one would have expected the plaintiff's suspicions to have been aroused by the sight of a gloved hand waving him into the room but, again, this rather depends upon his state of mind at the time. 23 The defendant submits that the fact that the robber wore a mask to hide his face from Mr Yoganathan but was not masked in the plaintiff's presence suggests that he was not concerned about being identified by the plaintiff. This may be so, but why would not the plaintiff have said that the robber was masked to avoid this suspicion arising? The plaintiff was not cross-examined about this matter by the defendant and his evidence in this respect is somewhat equivocal, depending, I think, upon the fact that he saw the robber vomiting in the lift. Be that as it may, the evidence is consistent with the robber believing that Mr Yoganathan could identify him whilst believing that the plaintiff did not know him and therefore was unable to identify him except by general description. 24 I accept the defendant's contention that it was likely that the robbers had inside information about the hotel. Of particular significance in this regard is the fact that they had an angle grinder available to them for opening the clasps on the padlocks on the safe which, I am prepared to accept, was unusual. They knew that only two members of staff would be on duty when they made their first moves. It was necessary to cross the downstairs lobby area in order to gain access to the room where the safe was and accordingly, necessary to turn the reception lights off. A number of other factors are referred to by the defendant but it seems to me that ordinary observation and careful reconnaissance would have informed them of these matters, whilst taking a spray paint can for any security camera is an obvious precaution. That the robbery was an "inside job" is no more than merely probable and it is obvious that the plaintiff was not the only possible source of information. Indeed, the defendant did not attempt to prove otherwise. 25 The defendant tendered a number of telephone records showing a number of calls between the plaintiff's mobile phone and those of Matthew Boylan (a friend of the plaintiff) and Lauren Brown (his then girlfriend) shortly before the robbery. (One of the investigating police officers could not recall exactly Mr Boylan's height and weight but thought he was "around my height" of 6'3" and "his build was thin to athletic", a description that is largely consistent with that given by Mr Yoganathan of his assailant.) The defendant submitted that the robbery was conducted by Boylan and Brown with the assistance of the plaintiff. Ms Brown denied that she made any of the calls from her mobile number and said that she frequently lent her telephone to the plaintiff. Ms Brown denied any involvement in the robbery. The defendant is in the odd position of relying heavily on those parts of Ms Brown's evidence that are adverse to the plaintiff, whilst submitting, on the other hand, that she was guilty of active involvement in an extremely serious crime. If she were involved, I would not regard her as a witness worthy of credit on any matter upon which she was not corroborated by independent evidence. However this may be, I consider that the evidentiary basis for concluding that Ms Brown was involved in the offence is very slight indeed and, although it is obviously possible that she may have been involved, I am far from satisfied on the balance of probabilities that she was. Ms Brown's evidence about Boylan's character certainly justifies a suspicion that he may well have had no compunction about being involved in the robbery and, if he were, it seems inevitable that the plaintiff would have known of it. The plaintiff's mother noted in a diary entry that Boylan had confessed to his circle of friends that he had been involved in the robbery. However, the source of this information is uncertain. At all events, it would be both inadmissible and inappropriate to rely on such hearsay, at least second-hand, as evidence of the truth of the statement. The same is true of Ms Jones' evidence as to what she was told by a Luke Fitzgerald (who gave evidence, but not as to this conversation.) Nor do I accept the defendant's submission that there was an evidentiary onus on the plaintiff to call Boylan. There was no reason why the defendant could not have called Boylan and, if necessary, sought to cross-examine him under s38 of the Evidence Act 1995. 26 The defendant led evidence that the plaintiff appeared to have substantial funds available to him after the robbery. I am not persuaded that the evidence as to the amount of this money is completely truthful. However, there are several possible explanations for these funds, none of which, of course, reflect well on the plaintiff. This factor does not, to my mind, add very much to the defendant's case against the plaintiff in respect of the robbery. 27 A number of other matters are relied on but I regard them as inconsequential and I do not propose to deal with them explicitly. 28 In the end, I am not satisfied by any of the matters relied on by the defendant, taken either individually or together, that it is more probable than not that the plaintiff was criminally involved in the robbery, let alone that the defendant has established his involvement to the level of probability referred to in Briginshaw v Briginshaw (1938) 60 CLR 336 (and see Helton v Allen (1940) 63 CLR 691 at 714, Rejfek v McElroy (1965) 112 CLR 517 at 521). 29 By far the more difficult problem from the plaintiff's point of view in relation to the robbery is whether (assuming that he suffered significant injury from it) the defendant was negligent. 30 It is not controversial that an employer has a duty of care towards the employee "to provide a proper place of work, proper plant and equipment, and a safe system of work …": Steven v Bodribb Sawmilling Co Pty Ltd (1986) 160 CLR 16 at 45; Kondis v State Transport Authority (1984) 154 CLR 687. In this context, an employer has a "duty to take reasonable care to avoid exposing the employees to an unnecessary risk of injuries"; Hamilton v Nuroof (WA) Pty Limited (1956) 96 CLR 18 per Dixon CJ at 25, cited with approval in Turner v South Australia (1982) 42 ALR 669 by Gibbs CJ at 670. 31 The plaintiff contends that it was reasonably foreseeable that persons would attempt to rob the hotel, especially on a Queen's Birthday weekend when cash might be expected to be at a relatively high level. Furthermore, the hotel was in Kings Cross, an area that was known to have a high crime rate of robberies and armed robberies. The plaintiff contends that leaving two night auditors alone in the hotel without a security guard was not adequate in terms of maintaining a safe workplace, there was a lack of any induction security training and armed robbery survival skills training and the physical security measures, including especially CCTV coverage, was inadequate. 32 The defendant's principal attack on the allegation of negligence is the persuasive argument that it is not practically possible to prevent a robbery such as occurred in this case where there was assistance by a member of staff on site at the time. I have concluded, however, that the plaintiff was not a party to the robbery and there is no basis for inferring that Mr Yoganathan was such a party. Mr Jennings, the expert security consultant called for the defendant, points out that there were no special risks arising from the fact that the hotel is situated in Kings Cross where, overwhelmingly, criminal activity may be fairly described as "street crime" rather than offences of this kind. It seems to me that Mr Jennings' opinion in this regard is clearly right. Having regard to the fact that the offenders had a spray paint can with them, it seems obvious that they were not to be deterred by the presence of any security cameras which, at all events, would only be useful in possibly detecting an offender after the offence unless contemporaneous observation of the video images was available. Knowledge of the presence of security cameras would simply have led to the robbers wearing a form of mask. Real-time video surveillance was not justified. Although the presence of a security guard in addition to the two night auditors may have deterred the robbers on this occasion, I do not think that the presence of a security guard or, for that matter, a third member of staff, would probably have prevented the robbery since, if a "hostage" situation arose I think it very likely that the security guard would have been compliant, having regard to the overwhelming priority of avoiding the infliction of serious injury. Indeed, the plaintiff's expert does not explain how the presence of a security guard would have been likely to have prevented this robbery; his report merely refers to the deterrent value of a security presence in general terms. It would obviously have been desirable for the hotel management to have foreseen the possibility that offenders minded to rob the hotel might secrete themselves in a room by one way or another and overpower by the use of some pretext or other, the staff and induce one or more of them to cooperate. I note, in this regard, that there appears to be no special reason why the offender took the plaintiff with him to rob the safe. If the plaintiff was an accessory, the robber would already have known of the safe and how to get access to it and the presence of the plaintiff would simply have been a complicating feature. If the plaintiff were an accessory it would have been far more sensible - and, indeed, the obvious course - to have tied him up with Mr Yoganathan. 33 In the result, I do not consider that the defendant failed in its duty of care by not employing a security guard since there was no particular reason for supposing that the hotel was likely to be subject to an armed robbery, despite the fact that it was a commercial undertaking some of whose customers might well pay in cash. We have not yet reached the stage in this country where every commercial premises receiving cash must be under the surveillance of armed guards or else the owner is potentially liable in negligence. In short, I accept the opinion of Mr Jennings that the security systems in place were reasonable. 34 The question of training has troubled me somewhat since I think that it would have been reasonable for the defendant to have foreseen the possibility of thieves secreting themselves in an empty room. It is obvious, as it seems to me, that obtaining and copying a key to a room or rooms would be relatively easy and, at all events, gaining access to a room even if it were locked may not be all that difficult. Upon this, there was no evidence, however, and I say no more about it. The point, however, is that I think the plaintiff and, for that matter, Mr Yoganathan, should have been warned about the importance of ensuring that a room was properly occupied by any caller by having the caller identify him or herself and cross-checking with the automatic naming system on the telephone. However, systems do go awry and I do not think that it would be practicable (as the defendant contended the plaintiff should have acted), that someone in the plaintiff's position would call the police simply because no name appeared against a call. However, this matter was not explored in evidence and is so speculative that it is not useful to consider it further. It is sufficient to say that the plaintiff did not seek to explain what the content of the posited training might be or how it might have avoided the robbery. It should be noted that, although I have found that the plaintiff was probably not an accomplice of the offenders, this does not gainsay the very real likelihood that the offenders did have some inside information. This strengthens my conclusion that there was no negligent failure on the part of the defendant that was, in a commonsense way, causative of the robbery. Accordingly, the defendant is entitled to a verdict. 35 This is sufficient to dispose of the case but, having regard to other important factual issues and against the possibility that I might be held to be wrong about my conclusion in respect of negligence, I think it desirable to deal with a number of other issues that arise if, indeed, the defendant had been negligent. The first of these issues concerns whether the plaintiff suffered PTSD as a result of his experience in the robbery and, if so, its extent, in particular whether it caused his heroin use. 36 On the morning of 9 June, Mr and Mrs Anderson were telephoned at home and told there had been an armed robbery at the hotel but that their son was safe. They collected their daughter, Tina, who lived nearby and drove straight to the hotel and thence to the police station where the plaintiff was making a statement. Mrs Anderson said that the plaintiff did not say very much, he was very pale and had a shocked look on his face. He said that he had been spat on and he was worried that he may have got AIDS. When his clothes were removed his mother saw redness of skin, bruising and abrasions; it is clear that the appearance of the plaintiff shocked her. The following day, an appointment was made for the plaintiff to see the family doctor who referred him on to Ms Cheryl Sommers, a counselling psychologist. Ms Sommers first saw the plaintiff on 10 June 1998 and continued weekly consultations until 28 August 1998 when, because she was going overseas, she referred him to Dr Sidney Oen, a consultant psychiatrist. She also saw the plaintiff twice in March 1999 after her return. In the plaintiff's initial interview, he said that the most frightening parts of the robbery were when he first realised what was happening and at the conclusion when he was tied up and kicked and spat upon. In the intervening period, he felt that he automatically obeyed the robber's instructions. During the initial interview, the plaintiff was very tired and unable to sit still due to the pain from being kicked. In subsequent sessions, the plaintiff complained of frequent dreams of the robbery in which he was chased, held at gunpoint, had bullets removed and saw blood dripping from his body; he said he was sometimes overwhelmed by fear at the thought that he could have been seriously hurt or killed and was fearful of using automatic teller machines in case he was robbed. He said that he also reacted with fear in a hairdressing salon one day when a man came in holding keys and the plaintiff thought that he was holding a weapon. The plaintiff complained of stomach pain, diarrhoea and headaches which at times lasted for days, chest pains which lasted for two weeks, difficulties falling asleep and walking in his sleep. He said that he felt estranged from others and had a severely diminished interest in all activities, being torn between wanting to withdraw from everyone and becoming anxious and restless and needing to seek out company. The plaintiff said that he felt vulnerable and powerless and that he only had 25% control of his life. He reported being harassed whilst he was driving by a car full of young men, when he felt petrified and angry and experienced the world as "crazy". He called 000 and drove quickly away. On 16 July 1998, further fear and vulnerability was triggered when he was followed for an hour by another car. He said that he thought about suicide but mainly feared that someone might kill him. The plaintiff was followed while driving on other occasions and later learnt that the police considered him to be a suspect in the robbery and were following him. He and his parents felt harassed by the police and suspected that their telephone and the plaintiff's car were bugged. His anxiety and symptoms became more severe and, although he went for a holiday with his friends to the Gold Coast, he became so depressed that he had to come home urgently. Ms Sommers noted on 25 August 1998 that at that time the plaintiff did not think about the robbery, only the police, whilst Dr Oen noted on 30 September that "if he had not been a suspect he thinks he would be over the actual incident" and, on 3 February 1999, that the plaintiff "thinks about the robbery a bit but not ruminating deeply". 37 Ms Sommers considered that the plaintiff was experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder. When she saw the plaintiff in March 1999, however, she noted that his symptoms were much less severe. He reported that he only thought about the robbery once every few days but that he still checked behind when driving to see whether he was being followed. He agreed with his general practitioner that he was ready to return to work and, indeed, had applied for several positions in hotel reception but had not yet been successful. He foresaw that when working in a hotel again he would think about the robbery but was realistic about his feelings and prepared to cope. Ms Sommers thought that it might be that the plaintiff would be unable to work in a front office position but noted his willingness to try. The level of anxiety arising out of the possibility that he might be the victim of another robbery was greater because he had already been the victim of a robbery at the Huntley Inn but otherwise she did not think that the experience was troubling. 38 Dr Sidney Oen saw the plaintiff first on 30 September 1998 and on six subsequent occasions, the last being 6 December 1998. Dr Oen's initial diagnosis was that the plaintiff was suffering from an adjustment disorder with an anxious mood, which he thought was resolving. Although it was originally planned that Dr Oen would only see the plaintiff on a few occasions whilst Ms Sommers was overseas, he saw him again the following week following a telephone call from the plaintiff's father stating that the plaintiff had been extremely distressed in the week after he saw him, possibly because he had to go over his story again with both the psychiatrist appointed by the workers' compensation insurer and himself. Mr Anderson said that they were concerned that he continued to be highly distressed by what he believed to be police persecution and they thought he may pose a danger to himself. Dr Oen saw him on 7 October 1998 as a consequence. He noted that the plaintiff was aroused and distressed but said that he had been misunderstood and did not wish to end his life. There appeared to be what Dr Oen described as "some ongoing suspiciousness that was distressing" and he prescribed an anti-depressant medication. Dr Oen noted that over the following few weeks the plaintiff stabilised on the medication and, on 28 October 1998, told Dr Oen that he felt quite well. He had no sense of persecution and Dr Oen asked him to discontinue the medication. He saw him next three weeks later when he had returned from his holiday in Queensland. He had become engaged whilst there to the surprise of his family but on return home said that his fiancée had indicated that she continued to have feelings for an old boyfriend, which upset the plaintiff very greatly and, as a result, he had taken a large amount of Panadol and on one occasion had "used a small amount of illicit drugs". However, the plaintiff was not overtly suicidal. The doctor said that he was much more distressed about his relationship with his fiancée than about the employment or police situations. Dr Oen noted that in the following week it seemed that things had settled reasonably and he was not having any markedly tearful days as he had the week before, there were no on-going feelings of police persecution and his sleep was quite good. Incidentally, the doctor noted that as well as his weekly benefit payments, the plaintiff was also being paid some money by his father to renovate the family property. Dr Oen saw him next on 23 December 1998 when the plaintiff reported that he had been working about four hours a day at his family's property and spending the rest of the time socialising. His relationship with his fiancée had cooled somewhat. The only time the plaintiff said that he felt distress was after talking to a solicitor regarding victim's compensation, when he had a headache. He had some dreams of police harassment but had not had any contact. The plaintiff said that he felt that a return to hotel work was the only viable option for him for the New Year. Dr Oen thought that his mental state had been more affected over recent times by his domestic difficulties than by the sequelae of the robbery and said that he did not think he would be able to continue to support his receiving on-going, weekly benefits. The extent of the contribution to the plaintiff's state of mind and conduct of his PTSD (as it resulted from the robbery), itself a dynamic, rather than a static condition, is obviously very difficult to measure. Much depends on the opportunity for observation. The ability to make a contemporaneous judgment is, it seems to me, a very significant advantage. Dr Oen's opinion must be given considerable weight. 39 A number of impressive medical witnesses were called on the plaintiff's behalf. I do not propose to analyse their evidence in detail since, as it seems to me, their conclusions were based upon histories that did not reflect adequately or at all the problems evident in the plaintiff's life well before the Capital Hotel robbery. However, I accept their opinion that the plaintiff suffered from PTSD of significant intensity as a result of the robbery. The fundamental problem is whether this condition was a substantial, as distinct from a possible, contributing cause of his drug use. It is unnecessary for me to state more than that the plaintiff has failed to persuade me that it was a substantial cause. Moreover, such is my view of the plaintiff's personality and pre-robbery choices, it is, I have concluded, impossible to say that he probably (as distinct from possibly) would not have used heroin but for the effects on him of the robbery on the Hotel Capital. This is not, of course, to say that he probably would have used heroin at all events. The evidence certainly does not permit a conclusion of this kind. 40 The plaintiff probably commenced to take heroin because of his relationship with his fiancée, Ms Jones, whom he had earlier known briefly at school. They met again in September 1998 and started to go out together. Ms Jones gave evidence. Although it is denied by the plaintiff, Ms Jones said that, at the time they were going out, the plaintiff used ecstasy frequently and, on one occasion, bought about a thousand tablets in circumstances which are a little unclear but which suggest that he was in partnership with one Ortado. I am unable to decide whether Ms Jones' evidence about this matter is altogether truthful but I think that the plaintiff was indeed using ecstasy and he admitted that he was dealing in the drug to finance his habit. Ecstasy use, of course, is itself dangerous to mental health. In late September 1998, moreover, a urine sample obtained from the plaintiff at the instance of Dr John Roberts, retained by the defendant, demonstrated the presence of amphetamines. Whilst cleaning the plaintiff's room at the end of October or early November, Mrs Anderson found about a dozen pink tablets, which she believed to be ecstasy. She and her husband flushed them down the toilet. 41 Ms Brown said that the plaintiff told her that he was going to take heroin to show Ms Jones how stupid she was and that she told him that it was idiotic to do so. She was not cross-examined to suggest that this conversation did not occur. It may well have occurred. Whether it was mere bravado or self-justification or whether, indeed, this was not, in the event, what led the plaintiff to commence heroin use it is not possible to say. It does, however, tend to refute the suggestion that this use was a form of self-medication. (There is a dispute between Ms Jones and the plaintiff as to who injected whom, which it is unnecessary to decide. I do not see how it matters.) 42 Ms Jones said that the plaintiff gave her an engagement ring costing almost $2,000, which he paid for with cash. They travelled to Queensland and spent a week together at the Gold Coast, their accommodation being paid for by the plaintiff with cash. It is unnecessary for present purposes to set out the evidence on this point, but I accept that of Ms Jones in this regard as being substantially true. The plaintiff said that he paid for the engagement ring from the proceeds of drug dealing. This may well be true; indeed, the defendant did not suggest otherwise. 43 The plaintiff's 21st birthday party occurred on 24 July 1999. On the following day, 25 July, he telephoned his father and told him that he had been taking heroin for three months, that he hated it and wanted help. (It appears that, in fact, the plaintiff had commenced taking heroin in March of that year.) Naturally, the plaintiff's parents were shocked. Mr Anderson immediately made enquiries about treatment and took his son on 27 July to the drug and alcohol clinic at Westmead Hospital. 44 Dr Jon Currie, the director of the Western Sydney Area Health Service Drug and Alcohol Services, under whose care the plaintiff was placed when his parents became aware of his heroin use, expressed the opinion that the plaintiff suffered profound and chronic post-traumatic distress from the effects of the robbery and this distress and his attempts to alleviate it were a major causative factor in his development of heroin dependence. He considered that the plaintiff's post-traumatic syndrome of anxiety and depression was a major contributing factor in his subsequent clinical history of relapse to and remission from heroin use, together with what the doctor described as "numerous episodes of substitution of other acts of dissociative or at risk behaviour (binge consumption of alcohol, binge gambling, episodic use of ecstasy, hallucinogens, increasing benzodiazepine dependence). In my view, however, the plaintiff's history, as disclosed to Dr Currie, did not sufficiently distinguish between his feelings on the one hand - given ex post facto, of course, at a time when the need for rationalising excuses was overwhelming - and the actual contributing factors to his behaviour and psychological state such as to permit a reliable conclusion about the impact of the robbery and the extent to which it was causative of the plaintiff's drug use and subsequent addiction. The distinctions that are crucial in this case were scarcely a concern of Dr Currie's, since his interest was, quite rightly, therapeutic and not investigative. In light of the purpose to which Dr Currie's reports were directed, I have no doubt that he turned his mind to the causes of the plaintiff's drug use and the opinion which I cited above is conscientious and reasonable. However, the history of the plaintiff as it has unfolded in this case - including my view of his credibility - is such as to lead me to doubt that Dr Currie's opinion about this matter is probably correct. In this respect I refer not only to the plaintiff's behaviour after the robbery but also to the weight given to the reported differences between that behaviour and his previous conduct. 45 Dr Currie said that, as at 28 July, the plaintiff was using heroin at relatively high rates, with frequent injections each day. He was treated as an outpatient by the clinic, having decided on complete abstinence, a course of action in which he was supported by the clinic and, of course, by his parents. The treatment involved frequent attendances for review, sometimes twice a week if there was a crisis but otherwise weekly or perhaps fortnightly and he was seen by a drug and alcohol team consisting of medical, nursing and counselling personnel. Medical treatment was, essentially, the use of Naltrexone to block the craving for heroin. For the first two months Dr Currie thought that things were going reasonably well and the plaintiff was taking his Naltrexone tablets daily, supervised by his mother. For technical reasons which it is unnecessary to describe, it can be stated with confidence that the plaintiff was not using heroin at this time. By 28 September, however, the plaintiff was desperate to try a dose of heroin and obtained a quarter gram, a common fix. He used two-thirds but was not dependent again, since the following day Naltrexone was given to him in the clinic without a negative response. There were a number of occasions through September and October where he was Naltrexone-challenged without negative response. Then came an episode involving a note left on the windscreen of the plaintiff's motor vehicle, which the plaintiff interpreted (perhaps rightly) as a threat, associated with increasing distress and paranoid behaviour, with counsellors becoming increasingly concerned that the plaintiff was becoming chaotic and then, on 25 October the plaintiff used heroin and suffered an overdose, resulting in hypoxic brain injury, coma and permanent injury which I described briefly at the beginning of this judgment. The plaintiff said that he was injected on this occasion by Ms Jones. She denies this. It does not matter but, if it did, the balance of probabilities favours Ms Jones' evidence on the point. 46 The forensic problem faced by the plaintiff relating to his heroin use relates both to causation and foreseeability. A crucial consideration in this case is that the plaintiff's decision to take heroin was a deliberate and voluntary one, a point made even more stark because of its clear criminality. Mason CJ said in March v Stramare (1991) 171 CLR 506 at 517-518 - "The fact that the intervening action is deliberate or voluntary does not necessarily mean that the plaintiff's injuries are not a consequence of the defendant's negligent conduct. In some situations the defendant may come under a duty of care not to expose the plaintiff to a risk of injury arising from deliberate or voluntary conduct or even to guard against that risk: see Chomentowski v Red Garter Restaurant Pty Limited (1970) 92 WN (NSW) 1070. To deny recovery in these situations because the intervening action is deliberate or voluntary would be to deprive the duty of any content. It has been said that the fact that the intervening action was foreseeable does not mean that the negligent defendant is liable for damage which results from the intervening action: … Caterson v Commissioner of Railways (1973) 128 CLR 99 at 110 but it is otherwise if the intervening action was in the ordinary course of things the very kind of thing likely to happen as a result of the defendant's negligence …" 47 In this case, I do not think it can be doubted that the intervening action - namely the use of heroin - was not in the ordinary course of things the very kind of thing likely to happen as a result of the defendant's failure (on the assumption there was one) to protect the plaintiff from being subjected to an armed robbery. It is obvious that any user of heroin may accidentally take an overdose and it is notorious that the consequences of an overdose can be very serious, even fatal. I am certain that the plaintiff was aware of these risks, even more so because they were explained to him by members of the team at the Westmead Drug and Alcohol Clinic. 48 There is a body of evidence which strongly suggests that there were other occurrences in the plaintiff's life, some of which were brought on by his own deliberate actions, that gave rise to considerable stress and anxiety but which had little or, more likely, nothing to do with the psychological sequelae of the robbery. Amongst these was the break-up of his relationship with Ms Jones. I do not consider that the plaintiff has established that this or his extreme reaction to it was due in whole or in part to the psychological impact of the robbery. The plaintiff's drug dealing and its associated risks were not caused by his PTSD but almost certainly made a significant additional contribution to the maelstrom of his life, quite apart from the contribution likely to have been made by his use of the drugs themselves. 49 It will be recalled that the plaintiff complained a great deal about what he regarded as police harassment and it seems clear that his (accurate) perception that he was a suspect and was being investigated by police caused him considerable anxiety and distress. It was not paranoia in the sense that he was deluded about this matter. However, although the police suspicions and the ensuing investigations were, of course, occasioned by the robbery, I do not think that they were a reasonably foreseeable consequence of the negligent failure of the defendant to prevent an armed robbery. 50 Even if the plaintiff suffered from PTSD as a result of the robbery (as I think that he probably was) and even if he was still suffering to some extent from that disorder when he commenced to take heroin, I am far from satisfied that he has established, more probably than not, that his taking of the heroin was caused by that disorder although it might be - and even this cannot, in my judgment, be said to be probable - that "but for" this condition he would not have taken the heroin. Indeed, I am satisfied that, by the time the plaintiff commenced to take heroin, his PTSD was relatively minor compared to the other stresses affecting him. 51 It seems to me that the using of heroin, even for the purposes of so-called "self-medication" cannot be regarded as other than "the deliberate infliction of self-harm" which, as Spigelman CJ said in AMP v RTA & Anor [2001] NSWCA 186; [2001] Aust Torts Reports 81-619 "should generally be regarded as 'independent and unreasonable' [a phrase used by Mason CJ in March v Strarmare 171 CLR at 517] and is a break in the sequence of events that might otherwise constitute a casual chain for the purpose of attributing legal responsibility…" 52 In the end, I prefer to base my conclusion upon the commonsense judgment that the cause of the plaintiff's use of illicit drugs, particularly heroin and, ultimately, his overdose was, substantially, his own independent decision. This is very different from the case, for example, where a seriously injured person is introduced to opiates as a pain control medication, becomes addicted and goes on to use heroin. Although I accept that the plaintiff's decision was probably made whilst he was affected to some degree by anxiety and stress, I do not think that this meant the decision was any less relevantly autonomous. To put this conclusion perhaps more precisely, the plaintiff has not established more probably than not that this anxiety and stress caused him to use heroin. It is not sufficient, as it seems to me, for the plaintiff to show that he took the heroin because it made him feel better or made his problems go away or as a form of self-medication. Of course heroin has a euphoric effect. In that sense, if the plaintiff did not want to feel better, he probably would not have taken the heroin but, he was, I am convinced, not so disabled by his then psychological state as to affect adversely the exercise of the judgment about whether he would use heroin or not. As troubling as his psychological state may have been, it was scarcely in the same class as the unremitting physical pain of the plaintiff in Grey v Simpson (unreported, NSWCA 3 April 1978 per Samuels JA). In short, the plaintiff's decision to take heroin was a sufficiently free, voluntary and deliberate choice to break the causal link, if any, between the robbery-induced PTSD and his heroin use; and, even if it were self-medication, that he foolishly chose a drug well-known to him to be dangerous cannot be laid at the defendant's door, even if the robbery occurred because of the defendant's negligence and even if the plaintiff was still suffering some psychological injury when he took the heroin. 53 Even if I am wrong about this, I am unable to agree that the decision to use heroin was a foreseeable consequence of the defendant's alleged negligence (cf Grey v Simpson (infra). It was not. 54 I think it fair to say, since many allegations were made against the plaintiff (and his parents) in the course of evidence, particularly by Ms Brown and Ms Jones, that I am sceptical about the reliability of a number of significant aspects of what they said about the plaintiff and his family and I think that their evidence contains a great deal of calculated exaggeration. By the same token, some parts of the plaintiff's evidence also cannot be believed. Because of the view that I have taken about the issues of negligence, causation and foreseeability - taking the plaintiff's case at close to its highest - I have not found it necessary to resolve these conflicts. However, in fairness I think that I should make two observations. The first is that I have concluded that the plaintiff himself injected the heroin which caused his hypoxia. The second is that I have formed the view, despite the criticisms made of her in the submissions of the defendant's counsel, that Mr and Mrs Anderson, the plaintiff's parents, and Ms Pettina Anderson, his sister, gave truthful and, in substance, reliable evidence. 55 In the result, however, it is necessary to give judgment for the defendant with costs.

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