Six months before that, 19-year-old John Milburn and 47-year-old Andrew Glaister died after taking ecstasy at Cream in Liverpool. In 2016, weeks before Stephanie’s death, 17-year-old Faye Allen died after taking a pill “double the normal dose” at Victoria Warehouse in Manchester. This follows a string of similar stories over the past two years. Last month, 22-year-old student Joana Burns died after taking MDMA during her end-of-university celebrations in Sheffield. Mostly, they are young people taking drugs, occasionally, for fun. According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), about one in 20 16- to 24-year-olds report having taken ecstasy in the past 12 months the Global Drugs Survey (GDS) found an increase in use among UK clubbers of 16% between 20. More people are taking ecstasy than ever before – and more people are dying from it. Stephanie Shevlin, who died after taking ecstasy in 2016. “Hopefully, she can see the pain we went through getting them.” I had the image in my head – I didn’t need to actually see her.” She looks back down at her tattoos and half smiles. “I couldn’t go in and see her,” Michelle says, her face wincing. She was part of a strong community that grew up at school together around 300 people showed up to her funeral in bright colours and SpongeBob SquarePants T-shirts, a homage to her favourite cartoon character.įor her mother, this is an easier memory than the night she arrived at the hospital. In the meantime, she worked at Southport Pleasureland, operating the rides. She was more into gaming and was hoping to study game design.
But a coroner’s report in November last year found that Stephanie was killed by a “high concentration of MDMA in her blood”, even though she had taken only the same quantity of drugs as her friends.Īlthough she had taken ecstasy a small number of times before, Stephanie couldn’t be described as a clubber. It was a hot night drinking too much water may have been a factor, as it has been in other ecstasy-related deaths. In 2010, there were eight in 2015, there were 57 Deaths linked to ecstasy or MDMA are at their highest in a decade. “She couldn’t even respond to me,” she says, her voice growing quieter. It is difficult for her to describe the journey to the hospital. “We all took the same amount.” At around midnight, Ann says, the group began to notice Stephanie go “a bit funny, falling around everywhere”. “We took our first half in the toilet and another one on the dance floor,” Ann says.
The group bought pills from “some lads” they met that night. “We only did a summer rave and a new year’s one,” she says. She says she is unhappy that previous news reports made Stephanie out to be “a druggie”. Ann speaks quietly as she recounts the events of that night. The 22-year-old had gone to the Box nightclub in Crewe for a rave called Core Blimey with her girlfriend of five years, Ann Roberts, and a small group of friends. Stephanie died in the early hours of 5 June last year after taking ecstasy on a night out. Why do young women keep dying after taking ecstasy? Guardian They drove there immediately, but she didn’t make it in time to see her daughter alive. Just before 1am, she got a phone call from the hospital. They remember the Saturday night Stephanie died it was only hours after they had started building the bar. A plaque is screwed to the front: “In loving memory of Stephanie Jade Shevlin, 1993-2016. Her forearm also bears a new inscription – “I didn’t give you the gift of life, life gave me the gift of you” – as does the small shed, half bar, half tiki stand, squeezed into the garden behind her. “Then I got the text of a Mother’s Day card she gave me: ‘A daughter holds your hand for a while, but holds your heart for ever.’” “It already had the ‘Stephanie’,” she says, pointing to the name etched across her wrist. I n a small, square garden behind a terraced house in Liverpool, Michelle Shevlin is showing me the tattoo she got soon after her only daughter died.
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