Coroner issues ecstasy warning

Adam Sheel who smoked cannabis and took ecstasy at weekends, collapsed after taking two tablets and three “bombs” of ecstasy compound PMA.

Rotherham’s assistant deputy coroner Richard Baker told an inquest: “I hope the events of this case will stand as a warning to others that recreational drug use can carry with it fatal consequences.”

The hearing was told that PMA, which Mr Sheel obtained from an Asian supplier, was rare in South Yorkshire and a pathologist had only seen two cases of deaths from it in the past 10 years.

Mr Sheel’s girlfriend Leanne Roberts, of Lord Street, Clifton, Rotherham said she was aware he had taken cocaine in the past but his drugs of choice were cannabis and ecstasy at weekends.

Her boyfriend, who lived at Hawke Close, Rawmarsh, Rotherham called at the house she shared with her brother Simon, on the evening of February 11 and they went to see a band.

Just before leaving the tyre fitter took two ecstasy tablets.

Miss Roberts said that as the night went on he took “quite a lot” and began hallucinating. They returned to her house and by about 5am he was falling over.

Miss Roberts sat him on the bed thinking he would come round, but phoned her brother because she was worried.

Simon Roberts arrived about 11am. He told the hearing: “With him being a regular user I assumed he would recover as he had done before.”

He put a blanket round him and went upstairs only for his sister to scream that Mr Sheel had stopped breathing.

Mr Roberts checked his pulse, gave him CPR and an ambulance was called, but it was too late.

Recording a verdict of misadventure, the coroner said traces of PMA had been found in Adam’s blood and urine and it was known to cause fatal cardiac arrests. The cause of death was given as cardiac arrest caused by PMA toxicity.