Sophie Russell was a beautiful girl with a long, swinging ponytail and a gorgeous smile.
She was a ‘massive ball of energy’ who worked hard and played hard, studied counselling and psychology at university and wanted to travel the world and work with children with learning disabilities.
Instead, she died aged 20, weighing next to nothing, looking like an old lady, doubly incontinent and in nappies, curled up in bed around a hot water bottle to ease the pain of her vicious stomach cramps.
Today her remains lie in a grave in the Lincolnshire village she grew up in. ‘It’s so peaceful, you can hear the birds,’ says her mother Tracy Marelli, 47.
Ellie Rowe had just finished her A-levels at Wells Cathedral School where she’d won a scholarship. She was brilliant and precocious and had set her sights on becoming a human rights lawyer.
She passed away in a tent at the Boomtown Fair music festival in Hampshire, aged 18. ‘When the police come to your house at 11pm, you just know,’ says Wendy Teasdill, Ellie’s mother.
Louis Sutton, 23, from Appledore, Kent, was funny, kind and a talented artist, designing T-shirts and baseball caps sporting his own art.
But the last year of his life was spent in and out of hospital and rehab. He was incontinent, in constant pain, wore nappies and became more and more isolated until, in December 2023, his mother Jennifer Hadlow found him motionless on his side.
(L-R) Maureen Boland mother of Jamie Boland; Vicky Unwin mother of Louise Cattell; Sharon Stanley mother of Nathan Stanley; Tracy Marelli mother of Sophie Russell; Clare Rogers mother of Rian Rogers; Sarah Killingsworth mother of Georgia Farnsworth; Jennifer Kitchen mother of Louis Sutton; Wendy Teasdill mother of Ellie Rowe
On and on, she tried CPR on his stiff body, until the emergency services on the other end of the line told her it was too late.
‘It’s a year and a half ago now, but all I see is that image of him on his bed,’ says Jennifer. ‘He was the loveliest boy. So polite and loving.’ Rian Rogers, an apprentice engineer at Jaguar Land Rover was handsome, popular, funny, mad about music and, according to his mother, Clare Rogers, ‘the glue that brought all of his friends together’.
But, towards the end, he rarely emerged from his bedroom.
‘His life just got smaller and smaller,’ says Clare.
Because he too was incontinent, isolated, in excruciating pain and only able to sleep upright in stretches of 20 minutes, until his breathing slowed down so much that he died in the shower, aged 26. With the warm water left running, his body was unviewable.
‘The undertakers covered him with a sheet and put a glove on his hand, so I could hold it,’ she says.
Georgia Farnsworth was funny and beautiful, with the most infectious laugh. She loved music and singing and most of all, her two young daughters.
But by the age of 26, she was skin and bones and covered in sores and bruises. Her insides were destroyed. She died in the bath. ‘She didn’t want to die,’ says mum Sarah Killingsworth.
Wendy Teasdill, the mother of Ellie Rowe
Tracy Marelli, the mother of Sophie Russell
Sharon Stanley, the mother of Nathan Stanley
Jennifer Kitchen, the mother of Louis Sutton
‘She was begging for help. She had everything to live for. She was a victim.’
All these children are victims of ketamine – also known as Ket, K, Special K or, sometimes, ‘regretamine’ – the wildly destructive drug sweeping the country at record levels, devastating lives, families and communities.
Their mums – along with many more parents – met through a WhatsApp group for families of victims of ketamine set up by The Daily Mail a couple of months ago.
And, last Saturday, they travelled from all around the country to meet in person – most of them for the first time – to share their stories, support one another and, most of all, help raise awareness of this monstrous drug that wrecks lives and destroys children.
‘We’re never going to stop it – it’s an epidemic,’ says Georgia’s mum Sarah. ‘But if we can stop one child from taking it then it will be worth it.’
They have their work cut out. Because ketamine – originally used as a horse tranquilliser and occasionally used in the NHS as an anaesthetic and to treat depression – is one of fastest growing drugs in the UK, embraced by everyone from festival-goers to young professionals, university students (it was cited as the cause of death for seven students in 2021 and numbers have been rocketing since) to factory workers. According to data from the Office for National Statistics, five per cent of 16-24 year olds admitted trying it in 2023 and its use has more than doubled in the past year.
Some take it as an occasional recreational drug – usually inhaled in white powder form, like cocaine and MDMA – others are regular users. Now even schoolchildren are taking it for its out of body feeling and hallucinations.
This week an ITV investigation reported that kids as young as 12 were getting hooked on it in Cheshire and suffering severe bladder damage, with dealers aged just 13 selling it in the school playground for the same price as a can of coke or bag of crips. Because while it might not sound the most fun drug – users talk about going into a zombie-like ‘K hole’ – it is cheap as chips. Cheaper than chips. Cheaper even than vaping. Often as little as £2 for a single dose, or ‘bump’ and ridiculously available across Britain. And on top of all that, for some mad reason, it is currently still categorised as a Class B drug (with cannabis and codeine), which means that many users assume that it’s relatively safe. It is not. There is at least one ketamine-related death a week in the UK and numbers are rising fast.
Maureen Boland, the mother of Jamie Boland
Sarah Killingsworth, the mother of Georgia Farnsworth
Clare Rogers, the mother of Rian Rogers
Vicky Unwin, the mother of Louise Cattell
It was the ‘acute effects’ of ketamine and the opioid buprenorphine, that killed Friends actor Matthew Perry in his hot tub at the age of 54 in 2023 and drag artist The Vivienne died after suffering a cardiac arrest caused by taking ketamine earlier this year.
And when Liam Payne fell from the third-floor balcony of his hotel room in Buenos Aires last October, the substances in his system included ‘pink cocaine’ – a recreational drug that typically is a mix of several drugs including methamphetamine, ketamine, MDMA and others – as well as cocaine, benzodiazepine and crack. In its pure form, ketamine can kill even on occasional recreational use.
Ellie, 18, the scholarship girl, took a single hit of ketamine with a pal in a tent at a festival.
She mixed it with just one can of lager. Her friend woke up. Ellie did not. The combination was enough to kill her.
Louise Cattell, 21, a brilliant art student and occasional DJ, took some with a couple of friends in her flat in London.
Her mother Vicky Unwin tells me that they all weighed it out carefully and took it together. The others were fine but, several hours later, Louise’s flatmate found her dead in the bath.
But almost worse are the effects of regular use, as poor Sophie, Louis, Rian, Georgia and hundreds of kids like them, have discovered. That it rots and scars your insides, causes terrible cramps, kidney and vaginal damage, shrinks your bladder to almost nothing leading to incontinence and major reconstructive surgery. That it can also make you depressed, psychotic and lower your heartbeat to such an extent that you simply pass away.
And that the trajectory from first use to a catastrophically painful and humiliating death is breathtakingly quick.
Sophie Russell was dead in just two years.
From the parents I have spoken to, the average lifespan for a regular user seems to be between 12 and 24 months, ruining the lives of all those around them. ‘That broken heart will never go,’ says Louis’ mum, Jennifer.
‘Everything is different. I can’t see him grow up. Get married. Have children. He can’t share Christmas with us anymore. It destroys the family that are alive.’
Sharon Stanley is the mother of Nathan, another victim and a big soft bear of a young man, who had three very young sons and would cry at the drop of a pin.
‘He used to say, “it’s everywhere Mum. I can’t get away from it,”’ she says. ‘He’d be bent over like a baby. He’d lay in bed bent over like a baby, crying in pain.’
Some of the parents think if their children had known the potential risks, they’d have left well alone. And of course drugs like this don’t just ravage the body, they wreck the mind.
‘Sophie went from being a very strong-willed girl, knowing what she wanted to someone who’d completely lost herself,’ says her mum, Tracy. ‘Rian was completely destroyed’ agreed Clare In the end, lovely Nathan walked into a river and drowned while under the influence of ketamine.
‘He had everything to live for. He would never have taken his life,’ says his mother. ‘He was desperate to be free of it.’
Tracy adds: ‘Sophie desperately wanted to stop. She said she didn’t want to die.’
All of these young people – ashamed, incontinent and increasingly isolated – were desperate to be free and begged for help. And for the parents, this was one the hardest things – to see their children crippled with pain, but failed by a lack of understanding.
They were fobbed off by GPs who gave them leaflets and told them ketamine wasn’t addictive and that they should simply stop taking it.
Louis only had it three times before he was addicted.
‘He told me he just couldn’t stop taking it,’ says Jennifer. ‘He was completely hooked.’
Whatever the side-effects, they didn’t stop. Because one of the really evil things about ketamine is that it is often the only drug able to numb the ‘ket cramps’ – triggering a vicious cycle of decline and causing some to carry on even after they’ve had their bladders removed. It goes without saying that all these mums are still in shock and probably always will be – unable to believe what happened to their gorgeous children, and so quickly.
Most still talk about their children in the present tense.
But, instead of curling up in despair, or hiding away, they have thrown their energies into spreading the word about how dangerous ketamine can be.
Most want ketamine to be reclassified as a Class A drug and, in part due to their dogged campaigning, it is currently before the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs.
So it looks hopeful, but will it make any difference?
Vicky Unwin, mother of Louise, doesn’t think so. She is in the other camp and believes the system would work better with the declassification of all drugs, flushing out the dealers and diverting the massive proceeds to the NHS.
Wendy gives talks at Boomtown Fair each year and campaigns for drug-testing stations at festivals.
‘I like to talk about Eleanor. I want people to know she was a living, breathing, lively, intelligent, compassionate person.’Clare started a petition to reclassify the drug that has nearly 5,000 signatures and a Facebook group Ketamine Awareness, with more than 700 followers. Many are already busy leafleting schools, GP surgeries, universities, demanding meetings with county crime commissioners and giving media interviews – anything to put pressure on Keir Starmer’s government to do something.
‘They need to support our youth. Our children. Our future,’ says Jennifer. ‘But they’re letting them all drop dead. It’s an epidemic.’
Tackling the UK’s ketamine problem should be a priority. The numbers are growing and affect so many. Not just parents, but siblings, offspring – such as Nathan’s three little lads and Georgia’s girls – who have lost a parent. Classmates. Neighbours. Community members. And so many devastated friends.
There were hundreds at Rian’s Harry Potter-themed funeral. Wells Cathedral was packed for Ellie’s memorial service. Jamie’s funeral started half an hour late because it took so long to try to get more than 300 people seated.
Tracy couldn’t believe how many came to Sophie’s sunset-themed service. ‘It was a lovely, lovely funeral, she says. ‘She had so many friends.’
And at Georgia’s, the mourners wept as they listened to an exquisite recording of her singing Ellie Goulding’s My Way, when she was just 12.
Not all the parents in this WhatsApp group could attend last Saturday. For some, the grief is simply too raw. Others are still caring for desperately ill children.
But those who did – many travelling hundreds of miles – brought tears and hugs, love, strength and plans to do more and more to fight this monster.
We meet just two days after the first anniversary of Jamie Boland’s death from ketamine. He ran a wonderful artisan coffee shop in Manchester and was deeply loved by all who knew him. He was found dead on his sofa by two of his employees. ‘He had always been such a smiley, happy boy’, says his mum, Maureen.
Last week, the family went camping – one of Jamie’s favourite things – to remember him.
And then, somehow, Maureen made it to be with others who truly understand.
About strength and suffering and resilience and the visceral need to do anything they can to stop the same monstrous thing happening to anyone else’s child.
Additional reporting: Matthew Barbour
