I think you should be careful when speculating what did and did not happen without all the facts. There seems to be an awful lot more to this story than has appeared in the media so far. He has posted on a number of other sites giving details of what actually happened in full. Check out the following Australian sites
http://www.rustylime.com/show_article.php?id=1476 and
http://andrewnorton.info/blog/2008/04/08/compo-culture/ for starters. Seems like the media are not presenting all the facts and are just concentrating on one aspect.
Not very good reading, cannot believe the airline just did not cough up a compensation payment as it is one stuff up after another!