Hours from death, Holby star’s girl with lover on trial for killing her
LAUGHING and joking with her rapper boyfriend, this is the daughter of Holby City actor John Michie hours before her drugs death.
During the 14-second clip released by police last night, Louella Fletcher-Michie, 24, can be seen giggling in a tent and showing off her festival wristbands while Ceon Broughton, 30, lies next to her smiling.
A male voice is heard describing Miss Fletcher-Michie as a ‘festival fairy’ while she plays with Christmas lights.
The footage was recorded by a friend of the couple on a mobile phone at the Bestival music event in Lulworth Cove, Dorset, on September 10, 2017.
That night Miss Fletcher-Michie, a yoga teacher and dancer, died of an overdose of party drug 2C-P.
Broughton allegedly caused his girlfriend’s death by failing to seek medical help for her.
He is also accused of giving her a ‘bumped up’ dose of the synthetic class-A substance.
The clip has been played twice during Broughton’s trial at Winchester Crown Court. On both occasions, Miss FletcherMichie’s heartbroken family left the courtroom.
Miss Fletcher-Michie only had ‘limited’ experience of drugs but had a ‘fatal attraction’ to grime artist Broughton, the trial previously heard. After giving her the 2C-P, the defendant filmed her when she was hallucinating before recording images of her corpse on his phone, jurors were told.
Miss Fletcher-Michie initially had a 90 per cent chance of recovery. But jurors have been told that instead of phoning 999, Broughton stayed in a secluded wooded area at Bestival, documenting her decline and mental distress in disturbing videos and photos.
The court heard Broughton ‘didn’t want to be arrested’ because he was serving a suspended sentence at the time.
His girlfriend was dead by the time he eventually emerged from the trees and alerted festival staff to her condition.
But Stephen Kamlish QC, for Broughton, said in his summing up: ‘This is not about moral responsibility. It is about criminal responsibility, decided on a very specific basis. It is not about giving the family something to ease their pain ... nothing can or will do that.’ Mr Kamlish said the truth was the couple got the drugs from a ‘random’ dealer and the phone recordings were ‘just what they do’.
Yesterday the jury retired to consider its verdict. Broughton, of Enfield, North London, has admitted two counts of supplying class A drugs in relation to giving Miss Fletcher-Michie and a friend 2C-P at the Glastonbury Festival in June 2017.
He denies manslaughter and a further charge of supplying a Class A drug at Bestival. The jury will continue its deliberations today.