A ST John's officer who initially failed to dispatch an ambulance to a man who died from drug-induced multiple organ failure has apologised to the man's family in the Northern Territory Coroners Court.

A JUDGE has slammed the legislation that forced him to send two Indonesian fishermen to prison for five years for smuggling people aboard the boat that exploded off Australia's coast.

TWO Indonesians who smuggled asylum seekers aboard a boat that exploded off Australia's northwest coast have each been sentenced to five years in prison.

A DRUG-affected man's thrashing around was like a scene from The Exorcist as he waited almost an hour for an ambulance at a remote mining town, a coronial inquest has heard.