ICE DEAL ENDS IN MATE’S DEATH
CANCER-STRICKEN BROCK COLLAPSED, NEVER WOKE UP
Doctors gave Brock Broadway (inset) a year to live. Six weeks later the 20-year-old collapsed on the toilet floor and bled to death minutes after his mate Blake Coster (main image) gave him the drug ice. Coster, who pleaded guilty to trafficking, was yesterday given a corrections order and community service. A magistrate found that the drug was not solely responsible for the death of Mr Broadway, who took the ice voluntarily.
DOCTORS gave Brock Broadway one year to live. Six weeks later the 20-year-old collapsed on a toilet floor and bled to death — minutes after he was given the drug ice by his friend Blake Coster.
Yesterday Coster walked from court with a corrections order and community service after pleading guilty to trafficking ice and cannabis.
Magistrate Michael Coghlan said that while ice could not be solely blamed for Mr Broadway’s death on September 28 last year, the drug had “impacted the outcome”.
He said Mr Broadway haemorrhaged within minutes of taking the drug.
“It’s not unreasonable to expect this given his fragility, the exposure to the drug impacted the outcome. It’s a little too coincidental that up, until that stage, with the progress made, he may have lived for up to 12 months, and possibly beyond, and the family have been deprived of spending precious time with him because of his use of ice,” Mr Coghlan said.
“There certainly has been some shortening of life due to the use of the drug.
“But it has been voluntarily taken.
“In sentencing you (Coster) I could not be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that your trafficking of ice then resulted directly in his death.”
Mr Broadway’s mother Liz Osborne said she didn’t want other parents to go through the same ordeal. “I can deal with the cancer. I could handle that. It was random. But not this,” she said.
“We should have been planning his 21st (birthday). Instead we were spreading his ashes.”
In a victim impact statement read aloud to the court, Ms Osborne said the ice epidemic had to be stopped.
“Any trust I had in Brock’s friends has been damaged completely. This is a terrible drug that has taken away my boy,” she said.
“The loss and devastation I feel can never be fully explained.
“He was haemorrhaging out of his nose and mouth. He was taken to hospital and never woke up.”
She said a specialist told the family the ice caused irreparable damage to Mr Broadway’s kidneys.
“They said he should have lived to see his birthday out and Christmas,” Ms Osborne said.
Mr Coghlan said that while Coster’s lawyer told the court the young man was devastated by the loss of a friend, he continued trafficking cannabis a month after Mr Broadway died.
“You, acting as his friend, were supposedly able to source ice and provide that to him. He used that ice and within a short time he collapsed and never recovered,” Mr Coghlan said.
“His family are no doubt very distressed by what occurred.
“If I could be satisfied there was a direct link, then this situation would likely be different.
“I had to be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt.”
Coster’s defence lawyer Adrian Paull argued there was no medical evidence of a connection between ice and the death.
He said Coster was also no longer engaged in the drug scene.
“His actions are something that are going to stay with him for the rest of his life. It’s a terrible loss,” Mr Paull told the court. “He is now really reassessing what he wants to do with his life. He has got a future ahead of him.
“He was trafficking just between his friends.”
Mr Broadway was diagnosed with leukaemia in January 2012, just weeks after his 18th birthday.
In September 2013 he had a bone-marrow transplant, and four months later was declared in remission.
But on Mother’s Day last year he collapsed after the cancer returned, and by August, doctors said there was nothing they could do.
He was given six to 12 months to live.
Ms Osborne said a recent event raised $5000 that was going to be used so Mr Broadway could travel to Ireland. Instead, the money paid for his funeral.
Coster was given an 18month community corrections order and 120 hours community service to be completed within the next six months.
He will also undergo assessment, testing and treatment for drug abuse and mental health issues.