MUM’S WAIT FOR JUSTICE A YEAR AFTER SON’S DEATH
EVERY time Tatum Price visits the cemetery where her son Carson is buried she plays him his favourite songs.
On the first anniversary of his tragic death, she brought along the tiny portable speaker that used to accompany the music-mad teenager everywhere he went.
On April 12 last year Carson Price was just 13 years old when he took an Ecstasy tablet branded with an image of the video game character Donkey Kong while out with friends in Ystrad Mynach Park.
A passerby alerted the emergency services when seeing Carson stumbling and being sick. He was taken to hospital but sadly died the same day.
His death shocked the community of Hengoed, Caerphilly, where Carson lived and sparked concern about the availability of drugs to young teenagers.
“Every time I go to the cemetery I play his songs for him and that is kind of to him,” Tatum, 40, said. “We talk about him as if he’s here. We never talk about him in the past. We always talk about him as if he’s here with us.”
Tatum said Carson was a kind and sociable boy, and would often leave the house to o play with friends, so she thought ht little of it when he left their house ouse on the evening of Friday, ay, April 12, last year.
But Tatum said she, , along with Carson’s dad Brian and little brother Coby, had been trying ever since to come to terms with the fact he never came home.
An inquest held at Gwent Coroners’ Court on April 3 heard Carson took an “excessive e amount of MDMA” – Ecstasy – and “reacted violently”.
He was found “pale and shaking” and taken to the University Hospital of Wales, Cardiff, where, despite the efforts of medical staff, his condition “rapidly deteriorated” and the teenager died from the effects of methylenedioxymethamphetamine toxicity.
Assistant coroner Sarah Le Fevre concluded Carson’s death was drug related.
Mum Tatum said: “It’s been up and down to be honest. It’s definitely hard and it doesn’t get any easier. I would be lying to people if I said it did.
“But I think you get used to Carson not waking up here. I kind of think you have to go along with thinking he is just in school because if you think about it too much it will wear you down.
“I have spoken to a few mums and they seem to be the same. If you think about it too much, about the reality of it, you just crumble.”
Tatum said she fell into depression for a period after Carson’s death, but has managed to recover with medication and by focusing on her training.
“I think for fighting depression training for me has been a bit of a godsend,” she said. “I didn’t want to go down the route of anti-depressants, but I had to at one point and then I came off them and I was using training.
“Training helps a lot. I’m lucky because it’s my profession, but it’s helped me. When I do a class it’s like a persona that I put on. So you are acting as somebody else.”
Tatum and Brian’s youngest son, Coby, was just nine years old when he lost his big bro brother, and recently had to celebrate hi his tenth birthday without Carson.
“Cob “Coby will talk about Carson, but if I talk about Carson being gon gone he will end the conversati sation with me,” Tatum said. “H “He won’t talk about that.
“I think being isolated n now it’s quite lonely for h him because he would have had ha Carson. It’s tough for him. h
“He did have counsellin ling, but I think naturally he can’t ca display his emotions and that’s what is causing him to be so agitated so easily. “It’s hard because I have got to be happy hap mum in front of him. But I’m grieving as well. I know when he’s down and he’s upset. You know the reason but obviously I can’t help him in any way. It’s very frustrating.”
Gwent Police made three arrests last year in the wake of Carson’s death.
A 14-year-old boy from Pontllanfraith was arrested on April 18 on suspicion of supplying class A drugs.
A 20-year-old man, also from Pontllanfraith, was arrested on April 23 on suspicion of supplying class A drugs and a 21-year-old man from Newbridge was arrested on June 5 on suspicion of the same offence. All three were released under investigation.
A Gwent Police spokeswoman said there was no further update on the case.
Tatum said it has been difficult for the
family not to see anyone face justice yet for what happened to Carson.
“It’s been a long time,” she said. “I know Carson put the drug in his mouth and nobody is to blame in that respect but he shouldn’t have been able to get hold of that.
“It’s child exploitation. Obviously they are preying on the naive for money.
“We need to set an example. If they don’t start setting an example it’s going to continue. It is going to make it OK to sell to kids and that’s what needs to stop because it is not OK.”
On Easter Sunday, the family visited the cemetery and Tatum, Brian and Coby let off fireworks in the park in Carson’s memory.
“It was because that’s Carson’s little family,” she said. “It was nice to have it just the three of us and it is Carson’s day.
“It was all about Carson.”