Whatever possessed a man with a degree and a bright future to get drunk and climb a 26-metre Sydney crane before falling to his death beggars belief, a NSW coroner says.
Coroner Sharon Freund made no recommendations into the death of 29-year-old Fenwick Joyce on Tuesday, saying he and his friends had "made up their minds to climb the crane and they were simply going to do it".
Mr Joyce plummeted 26 metres after he lost his footing trying to climb down the horizontal beam of the crane in Manly in the early hours of January 27 last year.
Mr Joyce - described as intelligent, fun-loving and adventurous - had previously been drinking with friends at an Australia Day party next to the construction site.
Party-goers scaled the crane throughout the celebrations.
To do this, the inquest heard, they had to climb over a boundary fence and a 2.7 metre wire fence at the base of the crane.
The coroner said Mr Joyce, known as "Fen", had been drinking and had taken cocaine and ecstasy before he took part in the climb.
It was hard to fathom what possessed Mr Joyce, who had recently completed a degree in construction management, to trespass into a locked site, scale the crane and walk across the boom in the dark while drunk, the coroner said.
Mr Joyce's family had requested the inquest be held to examine how it was possible for the partygoers to gain access to the construction site.
But Ms Freund said no barrier is foolproof and those seeking unauthorised access "will often take whatever measures they can to thwart the obstacles put in their way".
"I see no benefit in making a prescriptive recommendation in such circumstances," she said.
