HOW A FOOTY HERO FELL FROM GRACE

WHEN Gary Ablett peeled off his famous No. 5 jersey for the last time in
1997, he was left stranded between two worlds.In one he was the celebrity
freeloader, with adoring fans at every turn reminding him of his glory days
at Geelong AFL club.

Many still rate him the best footballer ever.

In the other, he was dodging the media, living in rehab, and undergoing
treatment for an alcohol and possible drug problem that was referred to
throughout his career as his "off-field issue".

Little wonder then that when he met the blonde, smiling and bubbly Alisha
Horan ­ at half his age a smitten fan ­ he fell hard.

But the short hard romance of the highflyer nicknamed "God" and the barmaid
from his footy-mad, regional hometown was to end in tragedy.

After a five-day drug and alcohol binge, Horan was dead from a massive
overdose.

She had suffered irreparable brain damage and was found to have traces of
heroin and amphetamines in her blood.

At an inquest in Melbourne Coroner's Court last week, Ablett refused to
answer questions about exactly what drugs Horan had taken on the grounds
that he could be incriminated.

Notoriously media-shy Ablett spoke sparingly at the inquest and returned
afterwards to his new home in regional Victoria.

He also refused to answer questions about his own drug use ­ and his
documented relationship with drug dealer Clayton Brown.

The inquest heard that Brown was suspected of supplying Miss Horan with
some of the drugs that killed her ­ green and white ecstasy tablets.

But Brown fled to London after Miss Horan's death and ­ like Ablett ­
refused to answer questions about her drug use.

Brown and his girlfriend Emmie Osawa were traced to London by Scotland
Yard, but cannot be extradited to Australia because Victorian police do not
have enough evidence to charge them with supplying ecstasy.

All of which prompted the chief investigator into Horan's death to comment
that Ablett and Brown had been reluctant to help him.

"The most disappointing aspects of the investigation were Ablett's refusal
to discuss his involvement in the drug use that caused Ms Horan's death and
the . . . indifferent refusal of Mr Brown to assist the investigation in
any way," Senior Constable Thomas Nairn said in his statement to the coroner.

Coroner Noreen Toohey reserved her findings on the three-day inquest, but a
lawyer for Horan's distraught family made clear their case. John Smallwood,
QC, said Horan was "basically partying a mile out of her depth . . . out of
her league".

The inquest heard that Ablett and Horan's acquaintance went back to her
days as a die-hard teenage fan hanging around Geelong's changerooms.

She had plastered her walls with posters of her idol, and was, in the words
of Const Nairn, "infatuated".

The pair met again on the night of February 11 last year at a private room
in the Wild Westcoast Saloon bar on Geelong's main drag, Ryrie St.

Horan was now 20 and a barmaid at the pub owned by Ablett's good friend,
Stewart Harrison.

After the nightclub closed at 5am they stayed and drank with a group for a
couple of hours and struck up a friendship that was to continue until her
death five days later.

Between that first meeting and her death on February 18, the pair attended
a barbecue and stayed two nights at Ablett's Geelong house.

They then headed the 70km to Melbourne to continue the bender, taking up
free accommodation at the Park Hyatt.

By the night of her death, Ablett told the court, he had the "staggers" and
passed out as soon as they arrived at their suite.

But when he came to, Horan was having trouble breathing and, after trying
to resuscitate her, Ablett was forced to call for medical help.

As her unconscious body was wheeled from the suite by paramedics, Ablett
saw Horan for the last time and was "devastated", he told the Court.

The couple had become "intimate" and "close friends", in the time they
spent together, he said. But the inquest heard that Horan's family had been
concerned about the friendship from the beginning.

Her father had called at Ablett's Geelong home concerned for his daughter
two nights before the couple left for Melbourne and the Park Hyatt.

"He wanted her to get in his car and go but she didn't want to," Ablett
told the inquest.

The Horan's have refused media interviews since being thrust into the
spotlight last year.

Instead, a friend in Geelong said they were waiting for the results of the
inquest and remained hopeful that charges would be laid over her death.

"But the one thing they all think now is that they wish they never heard
the name Gary Ablett, this thing has been a tragedy for them," the friend
said last week.