Killed by Ecstasy. But we want to remember our darling girl for how she lived, not how she died...
A year on, Regane MacColl’s family pay an emotional tribute to the girl who brought a smile to the face of everyone she met
THIS time last year Regane MacColl was excitedly planning her future.
After achieving good grades in her Higher exams, the popular, fun-loving schoolgirl had applied to university with dreams of becoming a lawyer.
Her proud family had just welcomed her back from a charitable mission to help orphaned children in Africa – for which she raised thousands of pounds – and she had been invited to talk at an event alongside MSPs.
But on a night out with friends at the Arches Nightclub in Glasgow in early February last year, the 17-yearold fell victim to Scotland’s deadly ‘party drug’ culture.
Her death from ecstasy sent shockwaves across the country – and her distraught family were left asking ‘why?’
Now, for the first time, her parents have spoken publicly about the tragedy and paid tribute to ‘a girl who brought a smile to everyone she met’.
In an exclusive interview with The Scottish Mail on Sunday on the eve of the anniversary of Regane’s death, her father Alastair MacColl and mother Vicki Lenaghan revealed their horror at finding out she had been taken to hospital, the anxious wait for news and the boundless grief when the teenager lost her fight for life.
They also issued an emotional warning about the trail of destruction left behind by drugs and urged fellow parents to ‘talk honestly to their kids’.
‘People always think it will never happen to them – but it can,’ Mr MacColl, 43, said.
‘There is nothing worse than losing a child and I hate to think of other families going through the pain we have experienced this past year.
‘I would ask parents to sit down with their kids and be honest with them about how dangerous trying drugs just once can be.
‘If anyone could see the devastation it can cause before they take something they would think twice.’
Miss Lenaghan, 42, said: ‘Our lives will never be the same. We will have to live with this pain for the rest of our days.
‘Time goes on but this cannot be healed.’
Her parents still ill do not know exactly ctly what happened in n the hours leading up to Regane’s death but toxicology reports showedwed she had the class A drug MDMA – found in ecstasy tablets – in her system.
Doctors fought for hours in an attempt to save the 17-year-old – a sixth year pupil at St Peter the Apostle High School in Clydebank, West Dunbartonshire – after she collapsed at the late-night club venue. But she di died later that day w with her parents at her bedside. I In the weeks surro rounding the trag tragedy, police put out r repeated warnings to young people to beware ofo a particularly strong strain ofo ecstasy known as Mortal Kombat Kombat.
The red-coloured pills, which are stamped with a dragon logo, were linked to the hospitalisation of three other young people at that time.
However, her parents never considered that their studious and responsible eldest child might find herself in a position where she would try drugs. ‘It was just not like her’, Miss Lenaghan said.
‘She had never given us reason to worry by coming home really late or really drunk and was the responsible one in her group.’
Mr MacColl said: ‘We never felt the need to explicitly warn her not to do it. We could talk about anything with her and, of course, drugs and their dangers came up but we never felt we had to sit her down and tell her “do not do that tonight”.’
They learned she was in trouble after Miss Lenaghan received a phone call from her worried nephew who was inside the ambulance with Regane in the early hours of February 2 last year.
‘I was in bed when I got a call in the
‘Time goes on but this cannot be healed’
middle of the night from Regane’s cousin who was in the ambulance with her,’ Miss Lenaghan said.
‘He said she wasn’t well and was going to hospital and that I needed to come quickly. It is all a blur but I remember thinking that maybe she had suffered an asthma attack or had drunk too much alcohol.
‘I called her dad and we all headed to the hospital. At no point did we realise how serious it was. We all hoped she would be OK.’
Mr MacColl added: ‘We still do not know exactly what happened inside the Arches. We know she became separated from her friends and that at the end of the night she became very unwell.
‘We were told that Regane’s body had taken a reaction to a substance and learned that some other young people who had been in the club had been hospitalised after apparently taking Mortal Kombat ecstasy pills.
‘One thing we do know is that our daughter was not a regular drug user.’
Regane’s heartbroken mother now says she is determined she be remembered ‘not for how she died, but who she was’.
‘She was a fun-loving and caring girl. She was smart and vivacious and was just starting to spread her wings in the world,’ Miss Lenaghan said.
‘When people think of her, we want them to recall how much potential she had and how she achieved so much in a short space of time.
‘She had just submitted her applications to university to study law.
‘She did some work experience in our local court and absolutely loved it so applied to the law schools at Strathclyde University and Stirling University.
‘She did well in her Higher exams in fifth year, particularly in English which she had a real natural ability for, and was studying Advanced Highers in English, politics and sociology. She had such a promising future ahead of her.’
One of Regane’s most impressive achievements was being selected from dozens of other young people to go to Africa with The Twende Pamoja Trust, a charity that aims to build relationships between communities in Tanzania and the UK.
There she visited schools and orphanages to teach them about Scottish culture and saw firsthand how the money raised for the cause was helping disadvantaged children. Mr MacColl said: ‘She spent three weeks in Tanzania with the most basic of facilities, visiting schools and an orphanage.
‘We were worried she would struggle with it all, as she was a girl who liked to look good and was used to comfortable surroundings, but she surprised everyone. She took to it like a duck to water.
‘She had grown up so much when she returned. She was less bothered about material things and how she looked and was so much more confident.
‘She worked so hard to raise money for the charity, which has links with her school, and had been offered the chance to return this year.’
Miss Lenaghan said: ‘That was the first time she had been away from her family for such a long time and we struggled not being able to contact her for the first ten days.
‘We worried about her, as all parents do.
‘Now, ten days without her does not seem long at all.’
She added: ‘Family was always incredibly important to Regane. She put her family first and was a great big sister. It hurts so much that her siblings won’t have her as an influence any more.
‘So many people have been left devastated by her death – her parents, step-parents, brothers, sister, cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, friends, colleagues, teachers.’
Despite holding down a part-time job in clothes chain Matalan, Regane was also working towards her Caritas Award.
The awards programme run by the Catholic Church encourages young people to demonstrate how their faith and values can have a positive impact on their communities. Her parents were presented with a posthumous medal on her behalf by Glasgow Archbishop Phillip Tartaglia.
The support of family, friends and their local community have helped over the past 12 months but Regane’s parents’ pain remains ‘very raw’.
Miss Lenaghan said: ‘We are still in total disbelief. It doesn’t feel real. If my phone rings I think it might be her. I still hope she will walk into the kitchen with that beautiful smile and tell me a funny story about her day.’
Mr MacColl said: ‘I could look at her photographs for hours and it feels like she is there with me.’
Despite separating when Regane was very young, her parents remain close and have supported each other through their grief.
As well as her parents, Regane also had a particularly strong bond with her brothers Ben, Leo and Aaron, sister Sophie and her step-parents. Her stepmother Clare MacColl said: ‘Her brothers and sisters still talk about her all the time.
‘It is hard to hear because we are still hurting, but also lovely because they are keeping her memory alive.’
She added: ‘Regane shared a room with Sophie, who is ten, and she has been struggling because she doesn’t have her to talk to. She’s growing up and there are things that she wouldn’t want to tell her parents but that Regane would have helped her with. She wrote a letter to Regane in her diary and it was heart-breaking.’
December 8 last year would have been Regane’s 18th birthday and, keen to mark the date ‘how she would have wanted’, her family got together to celebrate her life.
Miss Lenaghan said: ‘She was looking forward to turning 18 so much. It is such a milestone for teenagers.
‘It was hard but we wanted to mark it and celebrate for her.
‘We all went to her graveside. It was covered with flowers and birthday cards from her friends, which really touched us. Her brothers and sister released doves and we all shared stories.
‘All her schoolfriends have been celebrating their 18th and going off to university.
‘It is bittersweet for us because we are so happy for them – we watched them grow up alongside Regane – but it hurts so much that our daughter cannot join them.’
‘So many people have been left devastated’
‘She was looking forward to turning 18’