I am the only one who thinks the police are the only ones to blame for this incident.   They straight out refused a call for help.

I don't think Coota is up the road from Wagga, they should of tried to calm the guy until Wagga, Ive never heard of Countrylink resorting to headlocks before

Just because you take drugs doesn't mean you forfeit all other rights as a human.

If any one of us gets drunk, does it mean that we are any less in need of the help of others to make sure we are safe?  I agree that we all have a duty of care to ourselves, but in situations where we have breached that, as a society we should take care of others when they can't take care of themselves.

And dont get me wrong, I think illicit drugs are vile and should be stamped out (as well as those who push them), but some of the people taking them have serious addiction problems and mental health issues that are compounded with drugs and we do need to look out for them when they need it.

Some other responses:

- The report mentions nothing about Jeff having any significant negative impact on other passengers (i.e. harassing or attacking them).
- Jeff is of course part of the blame, i am not excusing him out of this
- The law says that appropriate action be taken (e.g. conducting the operator or police) if the conduct is endangering the safety of any person.  There are two legs here.  Was anyone's safety in jeopardy, and was the appropriate action taken?  NSW Trains processes appear to have prevented him from gaining access to restricted areas and im seeing no evidence of anything but nuisance being inflicted on other passengers.


I won't say more as i think that I am coming from a different ideological position to others, but ill finish off by repeating that the guy died, and the coroner ruled that on the basis of probability it was more than just the drugs that killed him.

I am the only one who thinks the police are the only ones to blame for this incident.   They straight out refused a call for help.

I don't think Coota is up the road from Wagga, they should of tried to calm the guy until Wagga, Ive never heard of Countrylink resorting to headlocks before

Your pretty stupid!

1) When was the last time you ever looked at a map? You don't think Cootamundra is up the road from Wagga Wagga!
It's not that far!

2) Why ask the Countrylink staff to keep that person onboard until Wagga Wagga? You have no brains, not only you be endangering yourself but the safety of fellow crew members and passengers, so they done the right thing removing that prick from the train at Cootamundra with the help of the police

3) Countrylink staff can now arrest if you haven't kept up with what has happened over the recent year's since Mike Baird in government he cut all transit officer's jobs and police cannot be onboard trains 24/7 so security training is exactly what the Countrylink staff needed to put that prick into a headlock, Excellent work to the Countrylink staff

"tazzer96" The only reason why the police could not be able to assist, it's because they probally didn't have the man power as they always complain about

Personally that donkey, Mike Baird! Should have kept the transit officer's

I am the only one who thinks the police are the only ones to blame for this incident.   They straight out refused a call for help.

That is what I am starting to think. Yes the idiot was on drugs or just plain drunk but if train staff ask for police assistance they should attend. I think that is the most damning part if that is true.

I don't agree with the call to charge the Sydney trains staff with manslaughter as that is plain ridiculous. They are trying to look out for the safety of the other passengers and being drunk or on drugs should not excuse this fellow from being responsible for his death. It is time to stop making excuses for people taking these illicit substances and make them completely responsible for their actions.

This sort of behaviour is why lockout laws were introduced.

I am the only one who thinks the police are the only ones to blame for this incident.   They straight out refused a call for help.

That is what I am starting to think. Yes the idiot was on drugs or just plain drunk but if train staff ask for police assistance they should attend. I think that is the most damning part if that is true.

I don't agree with the call to charge the Sydney trains staff with manslaughter as that is plain ridiculous. They are trying to look out for the safety of the other passengers and being drunk or on drugs should not excuse this fellow from being responsible for his death. It is time to stop making excuses for people taking these illicit substances and make them completely responsible for their actions.

This sort of behaviour is why lockout laws were introduced.

Oh no How dare you speak the truth

Modern Society where every child wins a prize just for attending school or sport and no one is responsible for their own actions as its societies fault or someone elses fault

Makes me sad this Garbage does

I am the only one who thinks the police are the only ones to blame for this incident.   They straight out refused a call for help.

I don't think Coota is up the road from Wagga, they should of tried to calm the guy until Wagga, Ive never heard of Countrylink resorting to headlocks before

Your pretty stupid!

1) When was the last time you ever looked at a map? You don't think Cootamundra is up the road from Wagga Wagga!
It's not that far!

2) Why ask the Countrylink staff to keep that person onboard until Wagga Wagga? You have no brains, not only you be endangering yourself but the safety of fellow crew members and passengers, so they done the right thing removing that prick from the train at Cootamundra with the help of the police

3) Countrylink staff can now arrest if you haven't kept up with what has happened over the recent year's since Mike Baird in government he cut all transit officer's jobs and police cannot be onboard trains 24/7 so security training is exactly what the Countrylink staff needed to put that prick into a headlock, Excellent work to the Countrylink staff

"tazzer96" The only reason why the police could not be able to assist, it's because they probally didn't have the man power as they always complain about

Personally that donkey, Mike Baird! Should have kept the transit officer's
90 kay isn't up the road dropkick and you cannot manhandle the public as per 'General Order'

I would presume that they don't have the manpower.   Country area's rarely have enough police to do their job properly. But I would find it odd that they refused to attend instead of saying "we have no one to attend".

Have no sympathy for the outcome to this guy or the one placed on a bench on the station who later walked into a freight train. Responsibility for YOU starts and finishes with YOU, you cannot not outsource it because you want to get smashed on drugs and/or alcohol. The safety of the passengers and crew comes first, not YOU causing the problem. Your needs will be accommodated as time and man power allows and if this means dragging you off the train by your feet and leaving you on a luggage trolley for others to deal with as their time allows, so be it.

The only thing I feel sorry for is that this guy died probably 5-10min too soon, otherwise the train would have continued and the staff wouldn't have to deal with the emotional shock and BS investigation that followed likely in an accusing manner.

........

And as for the crime scene bit, yes I was on a plane where a guy died, we diverted to Muscat (Oman), off loaded the body and his travel companions and the police came on board too lots of photos and we were off again.

I am the only one who thinks the police are the only ones to blame for this incident.   They straight out refused a call for help.

Surely the one who is to blame, is the whack job who took the ILLEGAL drugs?

the staff were trying to contain the situation

From the timetable...

Harden (01:07) to Cootamundra (01:42) is (35min)

Cootamundra (01:42) to Wagga Wagga (02:47) is (1hr 5min)

What I can't phathom is why someone would be carrying on like that in the early hours of the morning. Most passengers would be fast asleep, so any disturbance would be pretty unacceptable IMO.

During this time, many passengers describe Jeff as “pacing” the carriages, including between carriages B and C, speaking loudly and appearing agitated.

Ms Angelica Murphy described Jeff as becoming ”more and more upset and pacing up and down”.

Ms De–Silva heard a guard say to Jeff in a polite tone of voice “you have to get off the train, you’re not supposed to drink and you had alcohol on you”. She stated that Jeff was “angry and pacing up and down.”

Another passenger, Ms Ibrahim, was sitting in B carriage with her 5 children. At about 3.16am she observed Jeff walking up and down the aisle talking loudly to himself. He turned the overhead light on and said “I swear to God I’m not getting off”

She told the Court she was scared because of the agitated and angry behaviour and “thought it necessary to get him off the train – the kids were scared”.

http://www.coroners.justice.nsw.gov.au/Documents/Fakhouri%20Findings.pdf

Thanks for sharing.

NSW = Newcastle - Sydney - Wollongong, for all other parts of the state when a drug affected person is becoming increasing agitated / hostile you call for the police, if police are close by I imagine they would attend, if not the XPT staff have the option of trying to calm the person, hold the train till assistance arrives, escort the person from the train or last resort restrain the person if he / she is becoming violent,

Police are not a dime a dozen in the bush, they are spread very thinly on the ground over large distances and reaction takes time, if the situation had taken place at Junee quite possibly the same result may have occurred, Wagga Wagga would of had more chance for police to be on the scene but a scant 100k plus from Cootamundra what could of come to pass in that time and distance.

I'm not sorry for the deceased, he made his bed when he took the drugs, I'm sorry for the staff and passengers that had to suffer the fool while he was on the train.

I am the only one who thinks the police are the only ones to blame for this incident.   They straight out refused a call for help.

This happens all the time. Often the police in these country areas have only one police car to deal with a huge area and often cannot respond immediately to a situation.

NSW = Newcastle - Sydney - Wollongong, for all other parts of the state when a drug affected person is becoming increasing agitated / hostile you call for the police, if police are close by I imagine they would attend, if not the XPT staff have the option of trying to calm the person, hold the train till assistance arrives, escort the person from the train or last resort restrain the person if he / she is becoming violent,

Police are not a dime a dozen in the bush, they are spread very thinly on the ground over large distances and reaction takes time, if the situation had taken place at Junee quite possibly the same result may have occurred, Wagga Wagga would of had more chance for police to be on the scene but a scant 100k plus from Cootamundra what could of come to pass in that time and distance.

I'm not sorry for the deceased, he made his bed when he took the drugs, I'm sorry for the staff and passengers that had to suffer the fool while he was onthe train.

Stoned or mental no one deserves to be sat on until they cannot breathe, what they did was wrong and they will take the blame.

Checking out the statements attributed to Mr Khoury, he was a paranoid schizophrenic. He is said to have said so early during the journey. He also said that he did not need medication. This might have been his opinion and not that of his medical advisors. the standard treatment for schizophrenia is Lithium, which turns the patient into something resembling a zombie, and which many patients don't like.

Mr Khoury's behaviour on the train sounds like a serious episode of Schizophrenia, which could be very difficult for the train crew to cope with. They moved him from one car to another when he expressed paranoia about his adjacent passengers.

He asked to get off the train, then indicated that he didn't want to get off, all in the early hours of the morning. His behaviour was erratic and threatening. He could easily have attacked any other passenger during an episode of Paranoia.

Add to this that Khoury had taken methylamphetamine, which causes people without pre-existing mental illness to act erratically, he must have been extremely unstable. People taking this (illegal) drug often exhibit strength well beyond the expected. Three people were restraining him because it took three people to stop him from doing something that could have caused harm to himself or others.

It is very common for people to die at the end of such a drug induced episode, not because they were being restrained but because the combined effects of the drugs and the stress of physical activity beyond their normal capability induces heart failure. This could appear as inability to breathe because the heart wasn't operating correctly.

This was a no-win situation for all concerned.

If the coroner had been at Cootamundra station in the early morning, I think his verdict would have been different. The combination of hindsight and limited information does not promote a fair verdict.

Peter

This was a no-win situation for all concerned.

not sure about that, there is 1 less mentally unstable drug addict to worry about.

Junction Box! You still don't see the big picture here

The Countrylink staff done the right thing by holding that prick down until the police at Cootamundra arrived
this is in their power to do so, as I stated before there are no more transit officers any more because of that dumb donkey Mike Baird got rid of them

If you have children and one of them end up using the drug ICE are you really going to try to calm them down? Best of luck to you! Ice users are more dangerous then what you'd think

Wagga Wagga maybe 94.3 km's from Cootamundra to be technical it's "Down direction", but there's an old saying "It's only Up-The-Road" so therefore it's not that far - by car it's 89.8 km's

And you still believe that Countrylink staff can calm the ice user down until Wagga Wagga, hmm!

NSW = Newcastle - Sydney - Wollongong, for all other parts of the state when a drug affected person is becoming increasing agitated / hostile you call for the police, if police are close by I imagine they would attend, if not the XPT staff have the option of trying to calm the person, hold the train till assistance arrives, escort the person from the train or last resort restrain the person if he / she is becoming violent,

Police are not a dime a dozen in the bush, they are spread very thinly on the ground over large distances and reaction takes time, if the situation had taken place at Junee quite possibly the same result may have occurred, Wagga Wagga would of had more chance for police to be on the scene but a scant 100k plus from Cootamundra what could of come to pass in that time and distance.

I'm not sorry for the deceased, he made his bed when he took the drugs, I'm sorry for the staff and passengers that had to suffer the fool while he was onthe train.

Stoned or mental no one deserves to be sat on until they cannot breathe, what they did was wrong and they will take the blame.

When someone losses the plot and becomes threatening and a danger to others who have limited training in dealing with these idiots you do what you have to do to restrain the person and make the situation safe for you. If he'd been on a plane the restraint would have been more aggressive and included handcuffs. Additionally the passengers who are the ones doing the restraining as most of the cabin crew (female) are not strong enough will apply full force because they fear for tehir own safety being on a plane (my neighbor is head of on board security for a major airline) and in the past people have died during being restrained because no one trusts what the aggressor says until they stop breathing. When you get on a plane, the crew are trained to sterotype you during bordering (ie big strong, can look after yourself and render assistance), remember your seat number and watch your alcohol consumption and even slow it down if needed. Why do you think so many of the crew are standing saying hello looking at your bordering pass, its a memory challenge for them.

True the XPT was not a plane, but it was a train, in the middle of the night, in the middle of no where with far less trained staff than an airline in how to deal with these people and likely no handcuffs and probably less phsyically able bodies on the train compared to the average long haul flight.

At the end of the day the responsibility lies with the person sniffing, injecting or consuming, its illegal for a reason despite the best efforts of the tree hugging community.