Player A is involved in this live low stakes hand with Player B and Player C in a dealer dealt cash game.

Player A and C both check and Player B makes a bet on the river. It is Player A's turn to act. After a few seconds, a valet comes over with a drink for Player A. The table is positioned in a way that he stands up and walks half way round the back of the table in order to take the drink from the valet.

Player C said "He's folded" and puts his own cards ontop of Player A's cards and throws them towards the dealer. Player A sits back down once he's grabbed the drink and says "What's going on, I haven't folded"? Player C helps Player A take the bottom two cards from the 4 mucked cards and Player A checks they are his cards and puts them back infront of him. Player C moans that players can't leave the table, the dealer said "I could see he was only getting a drink from the valet and he wasn't walking away from the table" Player C says "You're too weak of a dealer" Dealer said "I told you not to touch his cards" (which he did after Player C put his ontop of Player A's)

Player B hasn't really said anything.
Player A asks the dealer to ask for a ruling from the floor, but the dealer said there is no one to ask (due to it being 6am) so he said he had to make the decision.

Play continues and Player A call's with 4th pair and loses. Player C said dealer should give him back the bet! (Player C is an aggressive scumbag who has some serious mental issues and has just spewed off £1.2k in the last 4 hours but is good for the game for that reason)

The dealer said I'm going to award Player B the whole pot and pushes him the chips.

How could this of been handled better? What should the ruling of been?

So many problems round the whole table! It literally is one of the juiciest games I've played in a while, with 5 of the 7 players being absolute whales.

Well you could have a floor person available. It being 6AM is no reason for there to be no one in charge.

Player C should have been removed from the game for touching another players cards.

I agree, nobody wanted him to leave though as he was an ATM machine

Assuming player C didn't do this with malicious intent, I'm fine with giving him a warning.

As for player A, his hand was dead as soon as player C put his cards on top of them. Easy decision, as he abandoned his cards when facing a bet and failed to protect his hand. I have no sympathy for a player that sees a bet, thinks for a second, and then gets out of his seat (as I interpret OP). Sounds like too much Hollywooding.

It's amusing that player A wanted a ruling yet still called with 4th pair. I would guess that his argument would have been that he should get back the money he had invested in the pot. What else could he ask for?

I dont follow your OP. You said that after the dealer ruled that player A gets his cards back, and player A in fact put his cards back in front of him, that then player A asks for a floor ruling? What sort of ruling was player A looking for?

Overall seems like it was handled OK, except player c should get a KITN.

Player A was looking for clarification from the floor that he can still play the hand in question, before he continues. When the dealer told him there was no one to confer with, he played the hand as advised by the dealer.

Well It clearly wasn't an accident. It was clearly the player deciding that he gets to make his own rulings. and don;t forget that the OP has already described the player this way...

This is not the type of player you give the benefit of the doubt.

Player C is right, the dealer is weak. The scumbags are very good at sniffing out weak dealers.

There are so many problems with this situation.

First off and foremost, there needs to be a floorperson nearby at all times. 6 AM is irrelevant. This is why there are floorpersons in the first place, just for weird situations like this. This would be like calling the police for an emergency and getting a voicemail to call back during regular business hours...

As for the situation of the hand, I have only a slight problem with the player standing up and walking to the valet, so long as he's in the general vicinity of the table. If the dealer is stonger he gets a clarification from the player first that he still intends to keep his cards alive. If the dealer is halfway competent, he tells the player to wait until the hand is over. The valet will understand.

The real problem with the hand is that two players' cards have touched each other and gone into the muck. The hand is dead.

Hand is dead, tell the guy not to get up in the middle of a hand he is playing, In the rooms im playing in if you were to get up in the middle of a hand it would be mucked.

Player A's hand is dead once Player C's cards touch it. No if's, and's, or but's.

There needs to be a floor person available. Dealers should not be in positions to make their own decisions that would ordinarily require a floor. The time of day is irrelevant.

Player A gets a KITN for not protecting his hand.

Player C gets a KITN for intentionally killing another player's hand. In reality he should get a warning along the lines of "don't do this again or you won't be allowed back". OPTAH.

Dealer gets a KITN for allowing Player A's hand to remain live.

Are we sure that Player A's hand is dead due solely to the actions of Player C?

Yes, the hand should have been protected with a card cover.

Yes, Player A should have not gotten up from the table until he had at least acted on his hand.

But RRoP isn't clear on killing Player A's hand, only Player C's hand.

If you can kill another hand by throwing your cards into them, anarchy will soon rule the tables. (Okay maybe not anarchy but it could get ugly)

I do agree that it kills Players C hand and if the cards belonging to Player A cannot be identified, it is dead but I don't believe it is clear cut and absolute that Player C's action will always result in Player A's hand being dead.

A is an idiot for walking away from his hand while it's his action.

A is an idiot for not protecting his hand while doing the above.

How do we know A got the same 2 cards back? Hand has to be dead.

In this case yes. these aren't cards which just touched the corner. This scenario presents genuine concern about the cards being switched. There is nothing you can do here now that would alleviate my concern about the integrity of these cards.

Well we avoid the anarchy by throwing out players who intentionally do this...

Player A's hand has to be dead at this point.
Player C should either be sternly warned or simply thrown out (although if there's no floor at 6 am, I have some doubts about there being much Security available, either).
Dealer was indeed weak, and if there's no floor, he should have acted as floor (and made a better decision).
Where was this? (Apparently somewhere in the UK.)
As far as a hand being killed simply by being touched by others' discards, if you sit in the 5 or 6 seats, you will fairly frequently have to fend off misaimed discards from the end seats (2,3 and 8,9). Even putting a chip on your cards may not be sufficient to prevent problems. Merely grazing your hand certainly shouldn't be enough to kill it (another stupid, modern, super-technical, anti-common-sense rules overstatement)(/rant), but if the cards intermix to where there's serious doubt about which cards are whose, they're generally dead, and should be. Letting a player sort through four cards, and decide which two were his, just isn't a good idea.