This article is more than 8 years old

This article is more than 8 years old

A 15-year-old girl who died after taking ecstasy she found in a university lecturer's drugs stash during a house party would not let friends call an ambulance because she was scared of getting into trouble, an inquest heard.

Isobel Jones-Reilly, known as Issy, took at least double the fatal dose of the drug and collapsed then died despite being given eight shots of adrenaline and 28 cycles of CPR when an ambulance was eventually called an hour later.

A postmortem revealed the schoolgirl had an "extremely high" level of ecstasy – 9.96mg per kg – in her body. Pathologist Dr Peter Wilkins said a fatal dose ranged from 0.18mg to 5mg.

Westminster coroners court heard that the teenager, who had been referred to a drug and alcohol service aged 14, was looking for solvents to sniff at the party at a house in Kensington, west London.

One boy at the unsupervised party, who cannot be named, reached into a cupboard, as he was the only one tall enough, and found a tube-like container with "numerous bags of pills and powders" inside.

He said: "Issy took one of the pills out of the bag and was looking at it. People were discussing taking them. I was against it as we didn't know what they were."

Brian Dodgeon, 61 – a research fellow at the Centre for Longitudinal Studies, part of the University of London's Institute of Education – owned the house.

He later admitted that the drugs, which included ecstasy, LSD and ketamine, were his and was sentenced to eight months in prison, suspended for two years, in December last year.

Guilt-ridden, he had tried to kill himself by jumping off a flyover a week after the schoolgirl's death in April last year, but survived, breaking both his legs and needing brain surgery.

Paula Sparks, representing Isobel's family at the inquest, asked Wilkins if she could have been saved if doctors had got to her sooner but he said he was unable to say.

The hearing was told Isobel took two pink pills with cherry designs imprinted on them. She also dabbed what she thought was cocaine on to her gums.

Initially she seemed fine, then became sweaty and kept pacing around in circles.

The teenage witness told the hearing: "Around 3am she was breathing heavily. She was quite panicky. Her jaw was moving as well. I looked it up on the internet and thought it must be ecstasy.

"She started to get really hot and sweaty and went upstairs to lie down. We asked, should we call an ambulance? But Issy said no."

Just before 4am an ambulance was called after she suffered a fit and started foaming at the mouth, but when paramedics arrived she was unconscious.

Giving evidence at the start of a three-day inquest, Isobel's mother Lynne Jones said she would never have let her go to the party if she had known it was going to be unsupervised.

"I realise now that I was naive. I never asked if adults were going to be there. I just can't understand why people would leave children unsupervised. This is what feels so painful for us. We've gone over and over it since Issy died."

She described her daughter as a "lovely, warm, friendly girl who was just a normal teenager".

She had suffered from ADHD and had encountered problems at school. She was referred to a drugs and alcohol key worker after turning up at school under the influence of cannabis but was not deemed to be high risk and was making good progress, according to her key worker.

Three other friends who also took the pills at the party survived.

Dodgeon, a "regular recreational drug user", had previously told a youngster who found cannabis in his house it was "OK to take sometimes", the inquest heard.

He and his wife Angela were in Hastings when the party took place and asked a family friend who lived across the street to be on standby if anything happened.

Isobel's aunt, Josephine Nicholas, said she called Angela Dodgeon after the tragedy to ask how they could have left the teenagers on their own all night.

"Angela said they hadn't thought it through. She said they made a bad decision but they had done it before and everything had been all right. She said the drugs were in a high up cupboard where no one could find them."

Dodgeon has a representative at the inquest and is expected to give evidence on Thursday.