Dad warns teens are prey for dealers after son died at Leeds festival | UK News

The dad of a teenager who died after taking ecstasy at a festival has warned the next ticket leading to the death of young person ‘has already been sold’.

David Celino, 16, died at Leeds Festival in August last year after taking the pill, a hearing at Wakefield Coroner’s Court heard on Tuesday.

His dad, Gianpiero Celino, claimed teenagers are left as prey to drug dealers who see them like ‘the child catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’.

He told the inquest: ‘The ticket that could signal the death of another young person has already been sold.

‘It’s out there somewhere. It’s just not been cashed.’

The pharmacist, from Salford, Greater Manchester, said he believed the organisers did not do enough to stop drug dealing which, he said, took place openly.

Mr Celino said: ‘We think there’s a problem with the availability and provision of drugs at the site.

‘We believe that, as it’s currently run, the festival can’t be safe for 16 or 17-year-olds who attend unaccompanied.’

He said the organisers talk about the measures they put in place to combat drug dealing and keep people safe ‘but it doesn’t work and David’s death is evidence of that’, Mr Celino said.

He described their reassurances as ‘theatre rather than facts’.

Mr Celino told the inquest how he and his wife had stayed in a hotel near the festival site because he was concerned David had not been at an event like it before.

He also said he paid hundreds of pounds for David and five of his friends to stay at the Camping Plus section of the site, which offered enhanced security.

But David suffered cardiac arrest in the medical centre at the festival before being taken to St James’s Hospital in Leeds.

Me Celino told the coroner he believed there needed to be greater search and surveillance activity at the site, as drug dealers could operate without fear of arrest.

He added under-18s were particularly vulnerable as restrictions on alcohol sales were so tightly observed, they were often looking for drugs instead.

Mr Celino, who said he has a background in implementing safety systems, said he was also concerned about medical provision at the site.

He said given ecstasy overdose was the most likely cause of death for young people at the site, there should be provisions for rapidly cooling patients as there is in a hospital.

‘Why are we talking about X-ray machines in the medical facility when we should be talking about ice baths,’ Mr Celino told the inquest.

He said David was clearly suffering from the effects of ecstasy in a selfie-video his son took of himself, telling senior coroner Kevin McLoughlin ‘he was not a well boy’.

Another of the boys in the group, who cannot be named, told the court how he believed David had taken ecstasy once before and had experimented with cannabis.

He said David first took half-tablet of ecstasy on the night they arrived at the site – the Thursday before David died on Saturday August 27, 2022 – and had brought that pill in with him.

The teenager told the inquest how the group later bought five tablets from a dealer camping near them for £50.

He said one of the group did not take any of the drugs, four of them took half a pill each but David took more, saying he needed to take more for it to have an effect as he had taken the tablet on the Thursday.

The teenager said he was not searched as he entered the site.

Some 29 arrests were made for drugs offences in 2022 with no prosecutions.

But Detective Inspector Michael Herbert, of West Yorkshire Police explained how it was very difficult to separate out genuine drugs dealers from people sharing drugs socially.

He insisted dealers would be prosecuted but said: ‘It’s not the intention to criminalise young people who are going to an event to enjoy themselves.’

Mr Herbert confirmed no one had been arrested in connection with the ecstasy David’s group bought.

Leeds Festival, which attracts more than 100,000 people every year over the weekend, is run by Festival Republic.

The organisation’s managing director Melvin Benn attended the inquest on Tuesday and will give evidence tomorrow.

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