Coroner's Finding: Xu, Robert Bo; Davies, Jarrod Robert
Deceased
Robert Bo Xu and Jarrod Robert Davies
Demographics
male
Date of death
2019-11-07
Finding date
2024-06-13
Cause of death
Drowning (Dr Xu); Undetermined - accidental drowning while intoxicated (Mr Davies)
AI-generated summary
Two men died after excessive alcohol consumption in Hobart waterfront venues. Dr B. (32), a trainee surgeon, consumed 9-10 whiskies and beers over several hours at three venues on 6-7 November 2019, reaching a blood alcohol level estimated at 0.228g/100ml. He fell into Victoria Dock and drowned. Mr Jarrod Robert Davies (27) consumed approximately 21+ alcoholic drinks over 11.75 hours on 8-9 February 2020, reaching an estimated BAC of 0.20g/100ml. He was assaulted at the Observatory Bar, likely sustaining a concussion, then was ejected without appropriate care. He subsequently entered the Derwent River and drowned. Bar staff failed to refuse service to intoxicated patrons, procedures to assess sobriety were inadequate, and post-assault care was deficient. The coroner found the excessive service of alcohol was a cause of both deaths and identified inadequate compliance monitoring by liquor licensing authorities as enabling poor practices at licensed premises.
AI-generated summary and tagging — may contain inaccuracies; refer to original finding for legal purposes.
Error types
Clinical conditions
Contributing factors
- Excessive alcohol consumption
- Failure to refuse service to intoxicated patrons
- Inadequate assessment of sobriety by bar staff
- Inadequate procedures for safe alcohol service
- Assault causing concussion (Mr Davies)
- Inadequate post-assault care
- Lack of compliance monitoring by liquor licensing authorities
- Licenced premises operating in high-risk environment with minimal oversight
Coroner's recommendations
- The Commissioner for Licensing should give consideration to attaching a condition to venues' out-of-hours permits requiring implementation of real-time CCTV monitoring, particularly for venues open to early morning hours and with high-volume fast-paced service environments.
- Formal guidelines should be developed and implemented for information sharing between Consumer Building and Occupational Services (CBOS) and Tasmania Police regarding security guard licensing status.
- The Evolve Spirits Bar should review its procedures to ensure that where a patron purchases multiple drinks, those drinks are being shared and not all consumed by the purchaser.
- The Commissioner of Police and Liquor and Gaming Branch should conduct joint initiatives involving regular, random spot checks of licensed premises, with any potential breaches fully investigated and prosecuted, and appropriate disciplinary action taken against licensees under the Liquor Licensing Act 1990 or crowd controllers under the Security and Investigations Agents Act 2002.
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