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A popular schoolboy who had fallen in with "some questionable friends" died from an ecstasy overdose, an inquest has concluded.
Emre Huseyin had been hanging out with pals on the Isle of Sheppey when it is believed he experimented with the recreational drug, also known as MDMA, for the first time.
An inquest at County Hall in Maidstone this morning heard how the group had consumed the substance dissolved in a fizzy drink and in crystal form on the afternoon of February 1, but the 15-year-old Oasis Academy pupil later began to feel unwell.
Returning to his family home in Berridge Road, Sheerness, at around 4.30pm, Emre went upstairs to his bedroom, where a short while later his sister found him undressed with a bedsheet around his waist.
In a statement read out at this morning's hearing, she described how her brother - who was involved with volunteering in the community - was sitting up and back down as if he "could not settle".
"He was trying to speak to us," she recalled, "but was struggling to find words."
An ambulance was called to the property when it became clear the teenager had stopped breathing and his sister attempted to resuscitate him while they waited for paramedics to arrive.
When South East Coast Ambulance Service arrived they were unable to save the young man's life and he was pronounced dead at 6.14pm.
The inquest into his death heard how Emre, whose mother had died when he was just three, was "a young man with a bright future ahead of him" and had always done well at school.
His family had moved to Sheppey from London in search of a better life somewhere with less crime, and he had settled into life at the Oasis Academy and soon became a mainstay of the secondary school’s award-winning dementia cafe.
That volunteering was featured in the NHS 70-year anniversary magazine and he was among pupils later invited to meet Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in recognition of that work.
The inquest heard that his father Yusuf Sakaryali had been visiting another son in Cyprus when he discovered the tragic news of his young son's death.
In a statement read by assistant coroner Sonia Hayes, he said: "I lost a part of myself."
During their investigation, police found no evidence that Emre had been coerced into taking the drug, or that he had ever experimented with the substance before that day.
Another teenager would later face trial for supplying ecstasy following the student's death, and the inquest heard one person was subsequently prosecuted.
Returning a finding of drug-related death caused by fatal MDMA consumption and toxicity, Ms Hayes issued a warning to other young people to consider the risks they take when dabbling with drugs.
She said: "His life was tragically cut short. Young people should try to understand the terrible consequences of not knowing what they are taking."
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