Death of 'fun-loving' Southsea labourer, 20, who took potentially toxic amount of MDMA is ruled accidental

Portsmouth Coroner's Court heard yesterday how Jack Stelfox, from Stockport, Greater Manchester, took the drug alongside cocaine and ketamine after going for 'a few pints'.

Jack and two friends who were staying with him at his Fawcett Road home, in Southsea, went to a city pub together on Tuesday, May 21, 2019.

After returning home that night they played cards, took recreational drugs and slept through the entirety of the following day.

But when Jack’s pals eventually awoke on Thursday, May 23, they found him unresponsive on his floor and attempted CPR.

Their efforts tragically came to no avail as paramedics called to the scene declared him dead shortly after 10.15am.

Jack's friends told police the trio all took at least half a tablet of the anxiety drug Xanax on the night they went out, but a post mortem found no trace in his system.

Coroner Christopher Wilkinson said it instead discovered 8mg of cocaine, 1,306mg of ketamine, a class B drug, and 8,573mg of MDMA.

The toxic range for MDMA, a form of the Class A drug ecstasy, is 1,800mg.

Police officer Craig Graves, who also attended the property, said he found Jack's two friends ‘in pieces'.

‘When they woke up they thought it was the Wednesday morning, but they had actually lost the whole day,' he told the coroner’s court.

‘One [friend] recalls waking up – he was not sure when it was. He went to the toilet and noticed Jack on the floor assuming he was asleep.’

Mr Wilkinson told the court a pathologist said the ‘combination’ of drugs in Jack's system likely led to a fatal ‘sudden cardiac arrest’.

‘He probably went to sleep and at some point suffered a heart attack because of the effect of those drugs,' said Mr Wilkinson.

‘There's nothing in the evidence at all that Jack was having difficulties in his life.’

Deeming the 20-year-old’s death ‘entirely accidental and unexpected’, he added: ‘It does appear it has just gone terribly wrong in terms of what he has taken.’

Jack's relatives at the inquest – some travelling from five hours away – said he moved to Portsmouth 12 months ago and was ‘loving life’.

They said he stayed in contact with loved ones via daily video calls and had shown no signs of difficulties in his new life in the south.

They paid tribute to him as a ‘very cheeky boy’ and a ‘lovable character who would get on with anyone' and ‘knew everything'.