By Paul Gregoire and Ugur Nedim
Serotonin is a chemical in the brain that puts a person in a good mood. A lack of serotonin can make a person depressed. The drugs Moclobemide and Venlafaxine can be used to treat low serotonin levels. And a combination of these drugs can produce a psychoactive reaction, making the user ‘high’.
Such a combination, however, can also kill the user, as these drugs inhibit the reabsorption of serotonin, which can cause the potentially fatal Serotonin Syndrome.
In 2004, Daniel Riley was taking both Moclobemide and Venlafaxine to treat depression. But he was also taking these two prescription drugs in combination to produce a high. The young man was sharing his drugs with other friends recreationally, whilst being aware of the risks he was taking in doing so.
Riley had known about the combination of the drugs producing a high and potentially killing the user since the late 1990s. He’d shared the pills with a Nicole Mullane in April 2000, which resulted in her falling into a coma, being hospitalised and for a period having to use a wheelchair.
Associates of Riley’s, Shaun Bateson and Brian Hadfield, both died in 2004. The evidence indicated that Bateson died of a result of a Moclobemide and Venlafaxine mix given to him by Riley in May that year, while in terms of Hadfield, it was inconclusive as to whether the drugs from Riley were the cause of his death.
John Willans, Amanda Ryan and Michael Wilson all fell sick after taking these drugs in a car with Riley in January 2005. Indeed, Riley himself had been hospitalised in late August 2004 as a result of the drug combination.
A deadly social practice
Riley was charged with seven offences over the deaths and pleaded not guilty to all charges. These included two charges of manslaughter in relation to the deaths of Bateson and Hadfield, and five charges in respect of causing another person to take poison.
In September 2009, a jury in the District Court of New South Wales found Riley guilty on one count of the offence of manslaughter in regard to the death of Bateson. This offence is contained in section 18 of the Crimes Act 1900 (NSW).
Manslaughter is a lesser charge than murder, as it reflects the unintentional or accidental killing of another person. Being found guilty of manslaughter makes a convicted individual liable to up to 25 years imprisonment.
In terms of the death of Bateson and Hadfield, Riley was also facing two counts of the lesser charge of maliciously causing a poison or other destructive or noxious thing to be taken and endangering the life of another, contrary section 39 of the Crimes Act, which carries up to 10 years inside.
The jury didn’t find that Riley was guilty of the manslaughter of Hadfield but rather, he was convicted over the poisoning of the man. The defendant was also found guilty of maliciously poisoning Wilson in a car in January 2005, but not Willans and Ryan.
There was no dispute over whether Bateson died as a result of using the prescription drugs Riley gave to him, as there was evidence of the accused having told this to another person following the death, while Wilson testified that the defendant had referred to the pills he took as “lollies”.
On 17 December 2009, NSW District Court Judge Martin Blackmore sentenced Riley to 10 years imprisonment in respect of his three convictions and non-parole was set at 7 years.
Grounds on appeal
Riley appealed his conviction to the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal (NSWCCA) on 31 May 2011. The defendant did so based on seven grounds of appeal.
The first ground involved the evidence not supporting the manslaughter conviction. The court of appeal found that a sighting of Riley and Bateson on the day of the latter’s death had occurred after the since convicted man had given the deceased some pills, yet Bateson wasn’t showing any signs that he was going to die.
Then NSW Chief Justice at Common Law Peter McClellan found on appeal that the ground was made out, as there was a reasonable doubt that Bateson had died as a result of the pills Riley gave him, as the deceased could have accessed more pills by himself later that same afternoon, which appeared a possible scenario.
The second ground raised was that the conviction over having maliciously poisoned Hadfield was unreasonable and not supported by the evidence, as while there were details conveying that Riley had given this man drugs before he died, there was also proof that the individual had consumed more of these same pills when he wasn’t in the presence of the owner of them.
This ground involved interpretation of the phrase “cause to take” the pills and the Crown assertion that Riley had “influence” over Hadfield’s behaviour. This ground was also made out.
The third ground countered the assertion that Riley had maliciously caused Wilson to take the pills, while he did not do the same for Willians and Ryan, as the convicted man had warned the latter two of the dangers of taking the drug combination.
The ground was made out as it was found that Wilson took numerous tablets throughout the night and was present during the warnings about them.
The fourth ground on appeal involved Riley challenging the trial judge on having found in relation to five points of tendency evidence that the defendant had a tendency to not inform people that the drug combination was potentially fatal.
Justice McClellan found that there was insufficient evidence to support the finding of this tendency, however it was further found that Judge Blackmore did not refer to this tendency in his summing up, so this ground was not made out.
As for the fifth ground, it involved the trial judge supposedly having made an error in his direction to the jury as to what constitutes causing a person to take a drug.
Judge Blackmore advised the jury that the crime of causing a person to take poison consists of four elements: being malicious, causing a person to take the substance, the substance being poison and the taking of it endangering a life.
In his directions to the jury, his Honour set out that “cause to take” means to have “substantially influenced” another to have taken a substance and that mere encouragement was not sufficient. The trial judge had also outlined that causing a person to take a drug further turns on whether those involved had been “fully informed” when taking them.
As Judge Blackmore had not defined to the jury what “fully informed” and “substantially influenced” meant, this had consisted of a miscarriage of justice, the appeal court found, and this ground was too made out.
The trial judge was further found to have been in error when failing to define ‘criminal negligence’ to the jury in respect of manslaughter, so the sixth ground was also made out.
However, the seventh ground relating to the trial judge being in error when admitting into evidence a letter written by the convicted man that addressed the circumstances of the drugtaking was not upheld, because Judge Blackmore was correct in having allowed this to happen.
Orders of the day
So, on 14 September 2011, Justice McClellan upheld the appeal and quashed the three convictions against Riley’s name, which allowed the man to walk free.
And NSWCCA Justices Clifton Hoeben and Michael Grove agreed with their colleagues’ orders.