Concerns have been raised about access to free drinking water at Mutiny festival this weekend after the death of two people believed to have taken high-strength ecstasy pills.



People who attended the event in Portsmouth on Saturday alleged on social media that there was a lack of drinking water after 4pm, when they claimed some of the taps stopped working properly and large queues built up.

The festival’s organisers vehemently denied access to water was limited and said the 21 taps were working at all times.



Ecstasy use can lead to overheating and dehydration. The NHS advises that drinking too little can be dangerous, but also that too much fluid can affect the brain, as ecstasy tends to make the body retain fluid.



The festival was cancelled on Sunday after the deaths of Georgia Jones, 18, and Tommy Cowan, 20, who also went by the name Tommy Bakeer and had a young son. Both were believed to be in reaction to drugs, Queen Alexandra hospital said. Another person was in a critical condition.



Jones’s mother, Janine Milburn, said in a Facebook post that the teenager had a fit after her temperature rose significantly because of two pills she had taken.

Cowan’s father, Damian, told how he had sat by his son in hospital. “I held his hand and he died. So I guess he wasn’t alone,” he told the BBC. “It’s no good saying ‘don’t do drugs’, all I can say is ‘take this on board, look what’s happened, if you want to end up that way, carry on’. If you don’t, don’t even think about it.”

In a statement, Jones’s family said: “Georgia was a very strong-willed and opinionated young lady. She was a shoulder for anyone that needed it.

“She loved her job working with people with learning and physical difficulties. We just hope she uses her ‘indoor voice’ wherever she may be.”

On Monday, police said three people had been arrested overnight on suspicion of involvement in the supply of class A drugs at the festival. A 20-year-old man from Havant, a 20-year-old man from Waterlooville and a 22-year-old man from Cosham were arrested overnight on Sunday. They were in police custody on Monday.

Tommy Cowan’s father, Damian, said: ‘He was funny, he loved life. He was a good lad – unfortunately he made a bad choice.’ Photograph: Facebook

At least 12 other people at the festival were admitted to the hospital in Portsmouth on Saturday night, although it noted that not all admissions were necessarily drug-related. Festival organisers issued a statement warning of a “dangerous high-strength or bad-batch substance on site”.



Fiona Measham, a director of the drug-testing charity The Loop, said dozens of people had contacted her expressing their concern about the availability of water at the festival.

“[People] were contacting us to say there was a real problem accessing water and that the pumps were not working properly and water was dripping out. There were big queues around the pump and also people queueing in the sun to get in [to the festival],” she said.

The terms and conditions on the festival website stipulated that attendees could only bring in 500ml water bottles with them. “There is a bigger learning point here about what festivals can do to make sure people have more access to water,” Measham said. “Why are they restricting access to how much water you can bring on site in first place? I don’t think there should be restrictions on that.”

She said Mutiny festival was not unusual in this approach and “all festivals should have better water provision”.

Cavan Homewood, 19, from Redhill, who attended Mutiny with a group of four friends, said: “The festival setup [for water] worked nicely up until about 4pm and the pressure at the water stations dropped out, so you had to sit there and keep pressing the tap for five minutes to fill up a bottle, and the queues were huge and lots of people were put off by that.”

He said some stalls selling water ran out. “I had no option but to stand in the sun and wait 10 minutes to fill up a water bottle,” Homewood added.

Another festivalgoer, Thomas Blain, 17, said: “The event organisers had proposed a rule banning opened bottles of water, and limiting individuals to one bottle each, but of course everyone in that queue had to drink the little water they had taken, meaning no one had any water once inside. Prices to buy water were extortionate, with places charging £2.50/£3.50 per bottle.

“No re-entry into the festival meant if you had no money, you had no water. I asked at the bar for tap water, but they refused.”



Organisers said they had monitored the free water areas to ensure there were no long queues. “In addition to the taps, free water was available at the medical and welfare facilities, and free water was handed out by security for those in the pit at the front of the stages,” they said.

Tributes were paid to the two people who died. Cowan’s friend Ollie Joell told the Guardian: “I don’t really know how to put into words what’s happened. It hasn’t really sunk in. To be at the festival and see Tommy go downhill, and have him be taken to an ambulance, even then I never thought I’d lose him.”

Damian Cowan had told the Portsmouth newspaper the News: “He was funny. He loved life and he loved his little boy. He was everything. He was a good lad – unfortunately he made a bad choice.”

In her Facebook tribute, Milburn described her daughter as “full of life”.