Why did leah betts die

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They have received more than calls and pubs and nightspots targeted include Racquel's where the teenager is thought to have obtained the fatal tablet. Detective Chief Inspector Brian Storey, leading the investigation, said: "Interesting information has come in about people who were at the Racquel's night club when the tablet was passed on.

Meanwhile, a young woman from East Anglia who has received Leah's lungs and heart was said to be stable yesterday. She also donated her eyes, liver and pancreas. Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies. Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Critics of the prosecutions of the two youths said the Crown Prosecution Service should have concentrated its efforts on the dealer who sold the drug and was believed to have fled the country.

Explore the BBC. Front Page Years Themes Witness. About This Site Text Only. Leah Betts from Latchingdon in Essex collapsed four hours after swallowing the pill which police believe may have been contaminated. Until Leah died I thought we were invincible. Like all teenagers, I thought bad things only happened to other people. In her home in Surrey, which she shares with her partner of two years and her eight-month-old daughter, Ms Cargill, who is now 27, has spoken for the first time in almost 10 years about the profound influence the very public death of her best friend had on her.

For a long time afterwards I just existed in a state of shock. One minute my best friend was there all the time. The next she was gone. It was very hard and I felt very lonely for a long time. I hoped they wouldn't blame me and I was afraid her friends who didn't take drugs might blame me.

I also felt so ashamed. My family thought I was a good girl. We both had good upbringings. We weren't stupid or deprived kids.

But I felt I'd let everyone down - my parents and my grandparents. It's the worst feeling to let down the people who love you so much. The death of Leah Betts sparked a controversial new anti-drugs movement, but despite its shock tactics it has done little to reduce the number of young people experimenting with drugs. Home Office figures released last week showed that 45 per cent of toyear-olds had tried illicit drugs at least once, and more than a quarter had taken them in the past year.

Other data, published last month, found that ecstasy use had risen dramatically in cities and provincial towns across the UK, where it is now much cheaper and easier to get hold of than a can of lager. Mike Linnell from the charity Lifeline told The Observer that children as young as 10 were bingeing on the pills, taking up to 20 a day. It's no longer a hedonistic drug taken in nightclubs. Kids are taking it because of its empathogenic qualities.

They sit around in little groups on estates and chat. It's like their therapy session. They are taking it in some cases simply to relieve the boredom and trauma of their daily lives.

The number of people whose deaths were blamed on ecstasy has increased sixfold from 12 in to 72 in , when the last accurate figures were available. But the risk of an ecstasy-related death has been exaggerated in the media, according to the charity Drugscope, which points out that there are far more fatalities associated with the use of heroin, cocaine, tranquilisers and even aspirin.

The charity is one of many organisations that have called for the drug to be reclassified from class A to class B on the basis that they do not believe it poses the same health risks, or related crime problems, as other class A drugs such as heroin or cocaine.