Daughter of Holby City star was ‘first 2C-P death in world’
THE daughter of John Michie, the Holby City star, was the first person in the world to die after taking the manufactured recreational drug 2C-P, a court heard yesterday.
Jurors were told medical experts have limited knowledge about the synthetic substance that caused Louella Fletcher-michie to hallucinate wildly and hurt herself before she died on Sept 11 in 2017. The 24-year-old’s death was the first to be recorded worldwide after taking the drug, the court heard. Dr Stephen Morley, an expert toxicologist, told jurors he had never before dealt with a case involving 2C-P, despite reporting on more than 30,000 toxicology cases.
It is alleged Ms Fletcher-michie was given the drug by Ceon Broughton, 29, her rapper boyfriend, before she overdosed in woodland just off the site of the Bestival music festival.
Giving evidence yesterday at Winchester Crown Court, Dr Russell Delaney, a forensic pathologist, said Ms Fletcher-michie had 0.032 milligrams of 2C-P per litre of blood in her body, as well as smaller amounts of MDMA and ketamine.
He said there had been reports of patients in the US being taken to hospital having taken 2C-P, but their lives were saved after being resuscitated and put on a defibrillator.
It is alleged Mr Broughton did not seek to get medical help for Ms Fletcher-michie, despite a hospital tent being just 440yds (400m) away from where they were on the Bestival site at Lulworth Castle, Dorset. The prosecution say this is because the grime singer “didn’t want to be arrested” as he was serving a suspended sentence and would likely be jailed.
The court has heard Mr Michie, who appeared in Coronation Street, and his wife made a desperate 130-mile dash to Bestival after hearing their daughter “screech” like a wild animal down the phone. Broughton, of Enfield, London, denies manslaughter and supplying class A drugs. The trial continues.