'Ecstasy' Teenager Dies

22 January 2014, 11:42

The head of the Met Police has told Heart the death of a 16 year old who's thought to have taken ecstasy is a tragedy.

Daniel Spargo-Mabbs was taken to hospital in the early hours of Saturday 18 January 2014 after going to an illegal rave at an industrial site in Hayes.

Police were called at about 4am by paramedics who were treating the unconscious teenager at the rave at Pump Lane, Silverdale Road.

He was first taken to a hospital in west London and then moved to another in central London, but died on Monday 20 January.

Two men - an 18 year old from Croydon and a 20 year old from Beckenham have been charged with drugs offences.

A third man has been bailed.

Daniel was a pupil at Archbishop Tenison's Church of England High School in Croydon.

Headteacher at the school Richard Parrish said: "He was a bright boy, he was an articulate boy, he was a boy of huge potential. He was going to go far.

"We are still stunned. We're just beginning to emerge from that."

The teenager, who was in the first year of studying for his A-levels, was "just beginning to find his niche" and was interested in "a whole range" of things, the teacher said.

He wrote a letter to parents to express the school's grief.

It said: "Sometimes you hope that the worst thing won't happen. Sometimes it does happen anyway. And yesterday it did.

"We began Monday knowing that Daniel Spargo-Mabbs, one of our Year 12 students, who has been with us in the school since Year Seven, was in a critical condition on a life support machine. At lunchtime he died. In the afternoon we spoke to each year group in turn, starting with his own, to tell them the terrible news.

"Today we begin again, knowing that our school and the world is the poorer without him. Today is too soon to do anything more than react to the brutal fact that we have lost Daniel.

"Tomorrow we will begin the process of remembering, of paying tributes, of collecting our thoughts and of coming together as a community to remember him together.

"Our heart goes out to Daniel's family, to his parents, to his brother Jacob (who did his A Levels here last summer) and to his closest friends."

Mr Parrish added: "It is not normal that a bright, articulate, talented 16-year-old should be taken from us in this way. It is not normal that his school and, above all, his family should be grieving today for his loss to us.

"It is not normal that his year group and his friends should have to learn so soon in life how short that life can be."