WOMAN OVERDOSED WHILE WITH AFL STAR

A young woman infatuated with former AFL star Gary Ablett overdosed on a
fatal cocktail of heroin and ecstasy while with him in a luxury hotel room,
an inquest was told yesterday.Alisha Horan, 20, of Geelong, had been
partying and drinking with Ablett in the days before she collapsed in a
room at Melbourne's Park Hyatt last February 17.

The pair began the spree days earlier when they met at the Geelong
nightclub, Wild Westcoast Saloon, where Ms Horan worked as a barmaid.

Businessman Alan Gerrand said in a statement tendered to Melbourne Coroners
Court that Ms Horan was "extremely animated" and was either "renewing an
acquaintance or beginning one" when she met the football star at the nightclub.

"She was obviously infatuated with him ... she was obviously enjoying being
with her football heroes," Mr Gerrand told police.

The next day Mr Gerrand saw her sitting on Ablett's bed. Later, Mr Gerrand
drove the two to the Park Hyatt where a business associate gave the pair
free accommodation.

Ms Horan seemed vacant, unsteady on her feet and affected by drugs.

Her condition was deteriorating when they went out drinking with a group of
people the night before she collapsed, Mr Gerrand said.

Later that night, he said he became uncomfortable at a South Yarra
nightspot when he believed one of the men in the group was a drug dealer.

That man, Clayton Brown, and his girlfriend Emmie Osawa, were to be called
as witnesses at the inquest but were not available because they were in the
United Kingdom.

Coroner's assistant Senior Sergeant Ed Philip told the inquest that
Scotland Yard police had failed to obtain statements from the pair who
would not "be returning to this jurisdiction for at least a year".

Mr Gerrand last saw Ms Horan "wobbly on her feet" and Mr Ablett helping her
into a taxi.

He said Mr Ablett rang him in a panic the next morning saying Ms Horan had
collapsed and had been taken to hospital.

Mr Ablett told Mr Gerrand he had woken to find Ms Horan sitting on the
floor with her head on a table and having difficulty breathing .

He had tried to resuscitate her, Mr Gerrand told the inquest.

"I asked what was happening and he said that she must have taken too many
pills," Mr Gerrand said.

Dr Anthony Tobin, who treated Ms Horan in intensive care at St Vincent's
Hospital, said brain damage, which he believed was due to breathing
problems caused by a drug overdose, had been irreversible by the time she
arrived at the hospital.

Later the next day, her life support was switched off.