A talented musician who struggled with addiction died at a friend's home.
Karl Owen was found after paramedics were called to a house on Sunnyside, Princes Park, to reports that the 43-year-old had suffered a seizure. He was pronounced dead at the scene at 8.45pm.
At an inquest today, coroner Andre Rebello said Karl's tragic death showed "the need to be more understanding and kind" to people suffering from drug and alcohol addiction.
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He said: "Part of our humanity is we're all frail and we all make mistakes and it's not this court's role to be judgemental about any life choices. And further, there's a big issue with regards to how society has treated certain illnesses. If somebody has cancer everybody goes out running marathons, fund-raising, holding coffee mornings for Cancer Research. The same cannot be said about poor mental health and dependency pathology.
"When somebody has poor mental health, society is particularly nasty and unfair in that we often refer to the person by the condition from which they suffer, so we have terms like schizophrenic and alcoholic.
"Mental illness is a reality just like any disease that anybody else suffers from, and it's incredibly unkind and unfair to be critical of anyone suffering.
"If you have got a dependence you have no volition. You can't just say stop. We know that about people who try to diet, about people try to give up smoking, about people who try to give up social drinking. It isn't always that easy.
"I know that however Karl lived, he battled hard and we shouldn't be critical of anything. He's not on trial here.
"The little boy born in 1979 is Karl. That's his humanity, his first steps, his first drawings, his first day at school. He's an ordinary person from an ordinary family who, later in life, suffered an illness.
"Karl's life must always overshadow his illness and his death, and he shouldn't be remembered for the problems he had to live with."
A post-mortem examination found Karl died from a combination of alcohol, cocaine and heroin. The coroner handed down a conclusion of a drugs-related death.
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