Leeds Festival drugs death: Dad says event is not safe

The father of a 16-year-old boy who died after taking drugs at last year's Leeds Festival said the event is currently not safe for under-18s.

David Celino died in hospital on 28 August 2022, after taking MDMA at the event at Bramham Park.

Gianpiero Celino told an inquest that the "ticket that signals the death of another young person has already been sold".

Organiser Festival Republic said it was listening to the family's concerns.

The teenager from Worsley, in Greater Manchester, took MDMA at about 19:00 BST on 27 August, an inquest at Wakefield Coroner's Court heard.

A video selfie showed him being unwell with the effects of ecstasy, his dad told the court, and he was helped to the medical tent by friends and passers-by after collapsing at 20:45.

He was taken to St James's Hospital in Leeds, where medics found his temperature was "extraordinarily high" and attempted to cool him down with ice packs.

He had a temperature of 41C when he arrived in hospital and had developed a life-threatening condition called serotonin syndrome, according to a statement from one of the doctors who treated him.

David was put into an induced coma but his organs failed and he died at about 07:30 the next morning.

The court heard the teenager, who Mr Celino described as an "ambitious boy" with "fantastic dreams and aspirations", had gone to the festival on the day he got his GCSE results.

A friend who was at the festival with him told the court a group of them had bought five ecstasy pills from a person in a nearby tent for £50.

He said David had taken ecstasy once before and that while the rest of the group took half a pill, he believed his friend took "one or two" tablets.

He said the group had bought four bottles of water, at a cost of £20, to try to get David to drink, but he was pale and then collapsed.

Giving evidence, Mr Celino questioned whether the festival was safe for under-18s who were unable to buy alcohol at the event but could access drugs.

He described dealers, who he said had offered his son free samples of drugs, as like "the child catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang".

Mr Celino said: "The ticket that signals the death of another young person has already been sold. It's out there somewhere, it's just not been cashed."

He added that he feared policing at the event was inadequate, searches were not thorough enough, and medical facilities might not be equipped to deal with drugs, adding that measures should be put in place to cool people down if they were overheating.

Det Insp Michael Herbert, of West Yorkshire Police, told the court it was very difficult to separate out genuine drugs dealers from people sharing drugs socially.

He said: "There are so many individuals who are in possession of drugs. We can't possibly arrest our way out of the issue."

Dr Mark Clayton, who has worked at Leeds Festival for five years, told the court medics usually see up to 2,000 patients during the event and "a third or half" of those have problems associated with drugs.

He said he believed doctors "may have been able to change the outcome" if David had been brought in for medical care an hour earlier, and called for greater education of the effects of drugs.

A spokesman for Festival Republic, which organises Leeds Festival, said the company had "listened to the concerns" of Mr Celino's family and that Melvin Benn, managing director of the company, would "do his best to address those concerns" when he gave evidence to the inquest.

Leeds City Council's barrister Matthew Stanbury said the authority was "very much in listening mode".

The inquest continues.

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