Police have blasted organisers of the unauthorised Omega Festival for allowing the event to continue following the death of 24-year-old punter, David Gallagher.
As The Daily Telegraph reports, Gallagher lay dead in his car for up to 12 hours while the festival of 2500 punters continued, despite the fact that his car was parked just 200 metres away from the main stage.
Organisers refused to cooperate with police and forced them to seek a crime scene warrant to enter the private property in Newton Boyd.
"In 26 years of policing, I have never seen anything like it where the organisers of an event — despite someone dying in front of them — have not stopped the event," Coffs-Clarence Local Area Command Detective Inspector Darren Jameson said.
"These events and the operators see these kids as dollars signs on their foreheads and in doing so they place huge risk on these kids lives."
It has been reported that police are working with Clarence Council in regards to breach of land use as the festival was held on rural land not for commercial use.
It is suspected that Gallagher died after consuming a cocktail of drugs.
"Traditionally in our experience, drugs and alcohol fuel these events with the mainstay drug of choice being cannabis," Jameson said.
“The difficulty arises when cannabis is mixed with other drugs and alcohol, and in particular other drugs, what is known as ‘poly-drugging’."
