Man, 53, took lethal dose of ecstasy at sex festival
Police investigating the death of an ecstasy user at a Tunbridge Wells sex festival discovered widespread evidence of drug taking where it was held, a coroner heard.
Steven Graves was found dead at the end of Flamefest, having taken a fatal dose of MDMA.
The 53-year-old was discovered in the early morning unresponsive, lying outside his tent under a duvet with a woman unconscious on his lap.
Attempts to revive him failed and paramedics pronounced him dead in Brokes Wood, High Brooms on August 22.
The woman was taken to a hospital, but later recovered.
Last week an inquest heard evidence from witnesses and Jim Farley, a police sergeant.
In the run-up to the death Mr Graves was thought to have taken a cocktail of illicit substances with a woman he had grown intimate with during the festival.
The hearing, at Archbishop’s Palace in Maidstone, was told the unemployed technical illustrator had been made redundant in May and lost his partner the previous year.
Mr Graves, who had no recent convictions, arrived at Flamefest on Friday afternoon and camped in the public area. There were about 250 other people present.
Jim Farley, detective sergeant at Tonbridge Police Station, said a tobacco tin containing cannabis and a white crystalline substance later identified as mephedrone was found nearby, as was a campfire which investigators ruled played no role in the death.
A wider examination of the site revealed significant evidence of widespread drug use, mirrors covered with white powder while sniffer dogs identified a number of sites where illicit substances had been used, added DS Farley.
“I am satisfied any intoxicants consumed by him were done voluntarily and no third party was involved in his death,” he said.
Geoffrey Smith, an assistant coroner, concluded the death to be drugs related.
He said: “It is plain to me and I find on balance from the evidence which I have heard that the deceased died from ingesting a lethal dose of MDMA and that was the reason for his death.”
A man in his 20s arrested on suspicion of possession of class A drugs remains under investigation.