Eloise Parry manslaughter trial told of emotional struggles

Eloise Parry, 21, died in April 2015 after taking eight diet pills containing the highly toxic chemical Dinitrophenol (DNP).

Her sister Rebecca Parry, now aged 19, in a statement read out to a manslaughter trial at Inner London Crown Court, said she had been "focused" on losing weight.

She noted that in the weeks and months leading up to her death, her sister had struggled "more and more" with her eating disorder.

She said: "The diet pills she had taken had made her lose a drastic amount of weight but she still wanted to be slimmer."

Albert Huynh, 33, Bernard Rebelo, 30, and Mary Roberts, 32, all deny Eloise's manslaughter.

They are also charged with supplying an "unsafe" food supplement containing DNP on the market between February 24 2014 and February 24, 2016.

Roberts denies a further charge of money laundering by allegedly transferring £20,000 for and on behalf of Rebelo.

Rebecca Parry said she left Eloise's house on April 11 at about 9pm and that her sister, who had been talking about doing a masters degree, seemed happy but tired. She had leg pain.

Rebecca said: "She mentioned a takeaway but I told her not to order one unless she was sure she could eat it."

She added that the next day it looked to her as though she had binged before taking the diet pills.

She said her sister had struggled with her mental health during her teenage years and had been diagnosed with bulimia and a borderline personality disorder.

In the weeks leading up to her death Eloise was admitted to hospital numerous times because of the side effects of DNP, said Rebecca Parry.

Eloise had told her sister that she had collapsed in March 2015 and suffered shortness of breath, fever, dehydration and faintness. She was also jaundiced.

Some weeks before she died, Eloise, a student at Wrexham Glyndwr University, had told her sister that she could not stop sweating or control her temperature.

She wore light clothes but seemed "too enchanted by her weight loss to acknowledge how unhealthy she was getting".

Rebecca added in her statement that Eloise had mentioned diet pills but did not associate them with her fever.

Rebecca added: "I had assumed she was talking about safe, shop-bought, diet pills."

It was only during one of Eloise's hospital stays that she learned the DNP had been bought online.

She said: "She (Eloise) only spoke of the effects it was having, about her weight, and mentioned no safety concerns or dosage.

"She was still focused on losing more weight on what she perceived to be her problem areas."

Between February and April 2015, the student allegedly made multiple purchases of DNP from the defendants' website.

It is alleged the defendants were operating from a flat in Harrow, north-west London, and made the capsules which they sold online for big profits.

Huynh, 33, from Northolt, north-west London, Rebelo, 30, and Roberts, 32, both from Gosport in Hampshire, deny two counts each of manslaughter, and one count each of supplying an unsafe food.

The jury has been told that DNP is a highly toxic substance when ingested, inhaled or absorbed through the skin.

It causes weight loss by burning fat and carbohydrates, in turn causing energy to be converted into heat.

Jurors heard that, among other things, DNP could cause multiple organ failure, hyperthermia, nausea, coma, muscle rigidity, cardiac arrest and death.

DNP was banned in 1938 by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as being a danger to human health.

It is an industrial chemical which has legitimate uses in pesticides and munitions but it is not a licensed medicine "in the world and certainly not in the UK" and its use has been likened to playing Russian roulette, according to consultant physician Professor Simon Thomas.

He told the jury: "I think this refers to the fact that there is uncertainty around what particular dose will give the desired effect or produce severe or life-threatening toxic effects.

"It is about what the dose will do to any individual taking a substance."

He added: "They could not predict in the 1930s and I do not think now what a safe dose could be for an individual - the lower the better - but what would be safe enough is uncertain."

Despite the risks some bodybuilders have used DNP because having lower body fat helps show off their muscle definition, the court heard.