Eloise Parry: Steroid dealer convicted again of Shrewsbury student's manslaughter
An online setroid dealer has been convicted for a second time of killing a young Shrewsbury woman who took toxic tablets marketed as slimming pills.
Bernard Rebelo, 32, from Gosport, Hampshire, was jailed in 2018 for seven years for the manslaughter of "troubled" student Eloise Parry, 21.
A jury deliberated for a day to find Rebelo guilty for a second time after the Court of Appeal last year ordered a retrial at the Old Bailey.
Ms Parry died in April 2015 after taking eight pills containing the poisonous Dinitrophenol (DNP), described online as "the devil's cut agent".
Rebelo was accused of buying the powder from a chemical factory in China, and selling it on as tablets to people around the world, including Ms Parry.
The court had heard how the yellow powder Ms Parry consumed was often advertised as a slimming product, but the known side effects included multiple organ failure, coma, and cardiac arrest.
During the First World War, it had been used as a base material for munitions products.
Prosecutor Richard Barraclough QC had told the jury that online forums compared consuming the chemical to "Russian roulette", adding: "If you take it, you might live, or you might die.
Ms Parry, from Shrewsbury in Shropshire - who had been diagnosed with the eating disorder bulimia, became "psychologically addicted" to the chemical after she started taking it in February 2015, jurors heard.
The court heard that DNP was particularly dangerous to those who suffer from eating disorders as the toxicity level is relative to a person's weight.
Desperate
On March 10 2015, Ms Parry was admitted to Wrexham hospital after collapsing, and texted a friend saying: "I f***** up. A and E. DNP overdose. Feel so f****** stupid.
"I knew I could not control my eating disorder well enough to take them safely, I knew it. It's not going to matter how skinny I am if I'm dead."
Three days later, she messaged: "I don't want to die, I never meant to hurt myself, I just felt so desperate.
"I've been trying so hard to be okay with my body and myself that I pushed down all of those negative feelings instead of dealing with them."
Rebelo, who ran his business from a flat in Harrow, west London, had sold DNP on his websites drpharmaceuticals.com and bionicpharmaceuticals.com, which have both since been taken down.
The prosecution alleged that he did so despite knowing of the dangers of taking it.
Mr Barraclough said: "He knew it was dangerous, not only because one of his associates had consumed DNP and had suffered some of its toxic effects... but because it was well-known that any number of authorities and organisations were warning against the dangers of consuming the chemical."
Rebelo denied manslaughter, but declined to give evidence in his defence at the retrial.
Following his conviction today, he was remanded into custody to be sentenced by Mrs Justice Whipple on Tuesday.
Of the 98 reported cases of DNP poisoning in the UK between 2007 and 2017, 14 resulted in death. There were six deaths in 2015 alone, the court heard.
