OH, MY GOD!

Former football star Gary Ablett is back in the news, back on Page One, with an interview about his turbulent, scandal-ridden, drug-riddled, life in retirement.

He’s found God (again) and, in the Herald Sun, he rails against the usual suspects. You know ‘the old tall poppy syndrome is alive and well in Australia’. He would know a lot about poppies especially the heroin they can be turned into.

And he’s been ‘disappointed and grieved at how self-righteous some people can be. Considering everyone has their own skeletons in the closet.’

Not many have one concerning the death of a young woman, a friend of your daughter’s, an Ablett fan with your picture on her bedroom walls, whom you enticed on a drug-fuelled binge. Alisha Horan died in Ablett’s hotel room.

You plough through the self-serving article about Ablett and you discover that despite God and all the Godswallop he hasn’t really learned much.

The coroner said it was unfortunate that Ablett’s drugged and drunken state made him unable to help Horan. And if he had helped her she might still be alive.

But seven years later has he stopped taking illegal drugs? No.’In terms of my own use of illicit drugs I feel I’m pretty much on top of it.There has been the odd relapse here and there.’

He’s learned nothing and it’s worth going back to the time of Alisha Horan’s death and the coroner’s comments.

Much was made of the fact at the time that Ablett had volunteered information to police. He did plead guilty to using and possessing ecstasy and heroin. And he was fined $1500.

The latest article says ‘he made a full open and honest statement to Police’. It doesn’t say he fled the hotel and went into hiding.

Big deal that he eventually fessed up because, he said, of his relationship with God. Different story to the night when Alisha Horan died.  And the days that followed.

While the young woman lay in a drug induced coma in hospital Ablett went into hiding. Police couldn’t find him. A lawyer said the usual rubbish about how he couldn’t wait for his day in court. Couldn’t wait to put the real story out there.

Then when an inquest came along Ablett refused to testify on the grounds it could incriminate him.

But back to the hours after he woke up in a city hotel room with the comatose young fan on his bed. 

Did he tell the paramedics trying to save her that he had given the unconscious girl six ecstasy tablets? No. Did he tell them he had given her heroin and told her it was cocaine? No.

Did he go to the hospital and tell the doctors what they had been up to. No.

Did he visit her family or phone them and tell them what had happened to their daughter. No.

In fact, and I have this confirmed in some anguished letters from members of her family, that girl was a Jane Doe as they say. An unknown patient in the hospital. A comatose female known only by a number.

Surely, there were other charges that could be laid against Ablett. Surely the life of Alisha Horan was worth more than $1500.

But Ablett and his God are apparently at peace with the world.

Friday, November 30, 2007

©Copyright Derryn Hinch 2007