PEOPLE STARTED having “fits” and “dropping” to the ground at a party where cocaine was “freely available” and where two young men collapsed and later died in hospital, a court has heard.
John Grey (23) and Kevin Doyle (21) died days after they fell into a coma at a party at Mr Grey’s mother’s house in Waterford city in the early hours of November 25th, 2007.
Betty Grey (48) has pleaded not guilty to permitting the sale, supply or distribution of cocaine in her house at Ballybeg Square, Waterford on that date.
Carlow Circuit Court yesterday heard there was “pandemonium” in the house as a number of partygoers began collapsing and falling into fits at around 4.30am.
Sally Morrissey, who attended the party, told the court she went into the kitchen to make a cup of tea and saw a bag of cocaine on a table. She said she asked in the room if she could take some and was told to “work away”.
Ms Morrissey said she swallowed some of the cocaine with her tea and went upstairs to the bathroom and that when she came out she saw “a chap lying on the floor in a bedroom”.
She asked some people if he was okay and that he then “began having a fit”.
She said she went back downstairs and a man sitting on a couch began having a fit and launched himself off the chair ending up on the floor. Ms Morrissey said she then saw another man standing on the stairs also having a fit.
Ms Morrissey told the court she felt her own throat “close up” and said she “started to scream” because she “couldn’t sit up” and said it was the “only thing I could do to pull myself around”.
Another partygoer Seán O’Loughlin told the court there was “pandemonium” in the house and that people began “puking and falling down”.
Mr O’Loughlin said he had earlier seen a “powder substance”, he understood to be cocaine, in a bag in an upstairs bedroom.
When asked by Paul Greene SC for Mrs Grey if he thought it was possible an uninvited guest could have brought the drugs to the party, Mr O’Loughlin replied, “it was”.
The trial continues today.
Claire Cassidy (24) also appeared before the court yesterday on a related charge.
She denies permitting the sale, supply or distribution of amphetamine at her house at Ardmore Park, Ballybeg, Waterford, on the same date.