Court told of teen's confusion over death

King's College students James Webster and Alex Banks on the night of the party after which James died. Photo / Supplied

The teenager who supplied alcohol to James Webster, who died after a night of binge drinking, says he was "like a brother" to him - but he is refusing to say where he got the alcohol.

He was a fellow student at King's College and yesterday gave evidence at the inquest into James' death. The teenager, who has name suppression, told of being approached firstly by a friend who asked him to get alcohol for James and then by James himself.

He has name suppression until at least Thursday to allow his family time to consider appealing the ruling from Coroner Gordon Matenga that he could be identified. His name has been suppressed throughout the three-day inquest.

The court heard a friend, Oscar Robinson, approached him to see if he would get alcohol for James for the weekend. Later in the week James spoke to him directly about what he wanted - a bottle of vodka and a bottle of Jagermeister.

"I said it was a lot of alcohol but he said they were saving up for other parties," the teenager said.

When he was asked where he got the alcohol from his lawyer, Peter Davey, intervened saying he wasn't prepared to answer where he acquired it, exercising his right of privilege.

The teenager refused to give police a statement after the death and he was asked why by James' uncle Donald Webster, who is representing James' parents Charles and Penny.

"He was a brother to me ... I wasn't emotionally stable enough. My head was in too many places," he said.

Told other young people were equally as affected and still managed to give statements to police, he said: "Obviously everyone deals with things differently. That's how I dealt with it."

Mr Webster asked him questions about the full school funeral held at King's College for James, and if he attended, which he had, but was interrupted by Mr Matenga who said he wouldn't allow him to "criticise this young man for what is his right to do".

The teenager said he had never got alcohol for anyone before and would never do it again, even if they were over 18.

He defended not speaking up when the Websters wrongly assumed James took the bottle of vodka from his grandmother's house by saying he hadn't seen the comments in the media because I "wasn't in a state to read anything". He told Mr Matenga that James' death made him realise what a deadly poison alcohol was.

"Sometimes teenagers think these rules are stupid and there's no reason for them being there and unfortunately it takes something like that to open our eyes to what we are told every weekend - that it is a poison."

Charles Webster said his son was "a fine young man who would have made a wonderful contribution to New Zealand society".

Mr Webster told the court he knew of only two occasions when his son had drunk alcohol before, and only ever a couple of beers.

He suspected evidence from James' friends -that he was in a drunken coma every other weekend- was just bravado.

Neither he nor his wife discussed the dangers of alcohol with him but planned to before the ball season. They didn't believe he would have drunk like he did that night if he'd known the risks.

"In one short encounter with alcohol our beautiful family has been devastated and friends and school communities deeply shocked," he said.

"We had an expert witness in this hearing give testimony that 250 millilitres of alcohol would be enough to kill James. If he had have known that there is no way in the world he would have drunk about half a bottle of vodka."

The coroner reserved his decision.