Australian DJ 'addicted' to cocaine

• Took drugs 'to beat anxiety'
• Taylor says unknown person gave him cocaine
• Faces possible 10-year prison sentence

AUSTRALIAN musician Nicholas Bernard Taylor had fallen into a full-blown cocaine addiction in an attempt to beat chronic anxiety, physical tremors and Parkinson's disease, a court in Bali heard yesterday.

Taylor, 41, was arrested at a party in a private villa in the upmarket Balinese suburb of Kerobokan two months ago with 0.32g of the drug.

Police alleged Taylor was trying to run away when they apprehended him and two others.

Taylor, who had hours earlier been performing as a disc jockey at the nearby Club 66, said he was given the cocaine by an unknown person in the club, and had later consumed some at the villa.

He faces 10 years' jail under Indonesia's harsh drugs laws, but that will be reduced to just three months if he can convince judges he is an addict - an increasingly common strategy, and one already used with success in other cases by Taylor's defence team.

Evidence was presented in Denpasar District Court yesterday by a prominent Indonesian psychiatrist, an Australian general practitioner, Taylor's Australian girlfriend and the two men arrested with him that he been dependent on cocaine for several years.

The Australian doctor, Peter Dobie, from Lismore on the NSW north coast, swore in a written affidavit that he had been treating Taylor since 2004 for addiction, anxiety and hand tremors, which were "most likely due to the early onset of Parkinson's disease".

Bali psychiatrist Denny Thong, who two years ago provided crucial evidence that helped free Sydney model Michelle Leslie early after her arrest with two ecstasy pills at a dance party, said he was convinced Taylor was addicted to cocaine.

Dr Thong visited Taylor in his police cell at the request of the musician's lawyer, Erwin Siregar - the same attorney who failed in his bid to have Australian marijuana trafficker Schapelle Corby escape her drug importation charges in the same court almost three years ago.

"He admitted to me that he was addicted, and that without cocaine he had no confidence in himself (as a DJ)," the drug law reform campaigner told judges.

Italian businessman Andrea Baldini, 40, who rented the luxury villa raided on June 11, and Belgian chef Jean-Francois Brouck, 32, also admitted in court yesterday that they had been found in possession of cocaine by arresting police.

Both Baldini and Brouck denied having ever used drugs with Taylor, although the Italian testified he had known for "about a year" of the Australian's addiction.

All three are being held in Bali's Kerobokan jail, also home to Corby and Australia's Bali Nine heroin trafficking gang.

Taylor's case returns to court next Monday, when prosecutors will make sentencing submissions.

Newshawk: http://www.napnt.org/
Pubdate: Tues, 7 Aug 2007
Source: news.com.au(Australia- Web)
Reporter: Stephen Fitzpatrick
Website: http://www.news.com.au