Retrial forces us to relive our anguish, says mother of Eloise Parry
The mother of a Shropshire student who died after taking toxic diet pills said she now faced a fresh ordeal after the man who sold the pills had his conviction quashed.
It is four years today since 21-year-old Eloise Parry died after taking eight tablets containing the poisonous 2,4-dinitrophenol, known as DNP.
Fiona Parry, of Condover, near Shrewsbury, said she would now have to relieve the anguish of a retrial after 31-year-old Bernard Rebelo had his manslaughter convictions overturned.
Rebelo, from Gosport, Hampshire, had been jailed for seven years in June after being found guilty of two counts of manslaughter and one of a food safety offence.
But Sir Brian Leveson, sitting with Mr Justice William Davis and Mr Justice Murray, quashed the manslaughter convictions. One manslaughter charge related to gross negligence and the other to an unlawful act.
He will now be tried on a single count of manslaughter, after his lawyer argued he should not have been convicted on two counts of manslaughter when both charges related to the same death.
Ordeal
Miss Parry said she and her family would now have to relive all the upset of another trial.
"I'm very upset, but we can't change it, we have got to face this new challenge," said Miss Parry.
"We will be going through this ordeal again, just hoping that the legal system convicts him again.
"It's very uncertain, and very unsettling."
She said it was particularly difficult for her younger daughter Rebecca, who had been with Eloise the day before she died.
“Fortunately, she didn’t have to give evidence at the first trial, but she now knows there is the prospect of being called as a witness, and she’s got to go through all of that.
“Her sister was somebody she looked up to, somebody she idolised, Ella was four years older, and when she lost her it was very difficult.
“This will be much harder for her than it will be for me. I know I will need to find the strength to support her as well as I can, I know it is going to be difficult.”
Hope
Miss Parry said Rebelo’s conviction last year had given her hope that she would be able to move on with her life.
“I thought when he was convicted, that was it,” she said.
“I know it was a long time coming, it took us three-and-a-bit years to get there, but we thought justice had been done. Now we have got to go through it all again, and there’s going to be a long period of uncertainty. It’s very unsettling.”
“I will now spend the weekend burying myself in other things to help me deal with it.”
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.
During his trial last year, Inner London Crown Court heard that Rebelo sold the tablets. The court heard Rebelo had bought the substance, which has a variety of industrial uses, including as a fertiliser and in the manufacturing of dyes and explosives.
The £340 a drum from China was enough to make £200,000 worth of tablets, the court was told.
