Eloise Parry: Mother’s relief after justice for Shrewsbury student killed by toxic diet pills
The mother of a Shrewsbury student killed by toxic diet pills has spoken spoke of her relief that the man who sold the tablets has been found guilty of manslaughter
Bernard Rebelo, 31, from Gosport in Hampshire, was yesterday sentenced in London for the manslaughter of Eloise Parry after being convicted earlier this week.
He is the first man in Britain to be convicted of manslaughter in relation to the sale of illegal slimming pills.
Eloise, 21, died at Royal Shrewsbury Hospital on April 12, 2015. She had taken eight tablets containing the poisonous compound 2,4-dinitrophenol, otherwise known as DNP. She had bought the tablets from Rebelo over the internet.
Rebelo was convicted on two counts of manslaughter, and a further charge of placing unsafe food on the market.
Rebelo’s girlfriend, Mary Roberts, 32, and business partner Albert Huynh, 33, were also accused of the same offences, but the charges against them were dropped. Roberts was also cleared of money laundering.
Eloise’s mother Fiona said she hoped the conviction would serve as a warning to others selling DNP over the internet.
“I don’t think I would want to say I am pleased, that would not be appropriate, there is no pleasure in any of this,” said Miss Parry who lives in Condover.
“But I would say I feel a sense of relief, I’m now really looking forward to the day when I can put it behind me.”
She said she hoped the conviction would make people think twice about selling such drugs online.
But she said she feared there would always be people who would try to get around the law.
She said: “I hope it will begin to make a difference, but there’s probably still a lot of work to do. The internet is constantly changing, people find new and ever more ingenious ways of hiding undesirable activities.”
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Eloise was studying for a families and childhood studies degree at Glyndwr University in Wrexham at the time of her death and had been expected to graduate with first-class honours.
But the bright, hard-working student had also been battling bulimia for two years, and had become preoccupied about her weight.
Inner London Crown Court heard that Rebelo had become a millionaire by selling the deadly tablets to people desperate to lose weight.
The trial heard Rebelo had flaunted his wealth on social media, being photographed driving Porsche and Chevrolet cars while wearing a Rolex.
He had bought the substance, which has a variety of industrial uses, including as a fertiliser and in the manufacturing of dyes and explosives, for £340 a drum in China, which would be enough to make £200,000 worth of tablets.
Miss Parry said she wanted to know what had happened to this money, and whether Roberts and Huynh had benefited from it.
Rebelo, who denied all charges, used two websites to sell the pills, operating from a flat in Harrow, London. Transactions were carried out using the virtual currency Bitcoin because it was an ‘anonymous and safe method’.
He insisted throughout the trial that his website had warned that DNP was not suitable for human consumption.
Rebelo said the capsules were intended for use as fertiliser in the garden, rat poison, and even for health and beauty.
Miss Parry said by turning the substance into tablets and selling them in small quantities it was clear that Rebelo fully intended his customer to consume them.
She said: “I don’t think he could possibly have intended them for any other use given that he was selling them in capsule form, and the quantities he was selling them in.”
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She said there may be a need to tighten the law regarding DNP to make it less ambiguous.
In a statement read out during the trial, Eloise’s sister Rebecca, 19, said Eloise 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.”
Rebecca said she left Eloise’s house on April 11 at about 9pm after a day out in Chester.
She said her sister, who had been talking about doing a master’s degree, seemed happy but tired, and was complaining about a 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 recalled that her sister had struggled with her mental health during her teenage years and had been diagnosed with bulimia and a borderline personality disorder.
Side effects
In the weeks leading up to her death, she was admitted to hospital numerous times because of the side effects of DNP, according to Rebecca.
Eloise had told her sister she had collapsed in March 2015 and suffered shortness of breath, fever, dehydration and faintness. She was also jaundiced. She told Rebecca 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.
She said that Eloise had mentioned diet pills but did not associate them with her fever.
The trial heard that DNP can cause multiple organ failure, hypothermia, coma, muscle rigidity, cardiac arrest and death.
The court heard that depending on body weight, just 200mg of DNP could be lethal.
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) said it was the first time somebody had been convicted of manslaughter relating to the sale of DNP.
Eloise was posthumously awarded a diploma of higher education by Glyndwr University for the work she had completed towards her degree.
Lecturer Ruth Davies said Eloise always found time to help others.
“Ella was a vivacious, intelligent, diligent and kind person,” she said.
“She would come and spend time talking to her lecturers on a regular basis and was a valued member of our student community. She has been missed by both students and staff.
“Ella always participated fully in her studies, ensuring her work was to a very high standard.
“Ella also supported her peers in the group, and they likewise would try to support Ella.”
Killer tablets sold for weight loss
DNP has a variety of industrial uses, including as a photographic chemical, a fertiliser and in the manufacturing of dyes and explosives.
The drug causes weight loss by burning fat and carbohydrates, in turn causing energy to be converted into heat.
Those who have taken the drug experience an increase in temperature and metabolic rate, which can prove fatal.
Simon Thomas, professor of clinical pharmacology and therapeutics at Newcastle University, says blocking the storage of energy in cells, which stops the production of fat, might seem attractive but he warns that DNP is highly toxic.
He said: “Of all of the poisons that we deal with, DNP is the one that causes the highest proportion of fatalities. It’s extremely dangerous.”
He says it’s been known for many years that DNP, full name 2,4-Dinitrophenol, can help people lose weight. But there is no antidote to treat people once they have taken the chemical.
It was used by doctors in the mid-1930s as a treatment for obese patients.
However, because of its adverse effects it was banned in the US in 1938 and declared unfit for human consumption. He said: “One of the really worrying things about DNP is that there isn’t a specific antidote for it.
“While various medical treatments to try to reduce temperature are available, in my experience they’re often unsuccessful and patients may progress and die of DNP poisoning in spite of best medical care.”
One such victim was 28-year-old Sean Cleathero, who died at a gym in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, in October 2012.
The FSA believes this group of users can be particularly hard to reach. They say that many bodybuilders still wrongly believe they can consume DNP safely.
