Louella Fletcher-Michie: Boyfriend said 'I can't get bagged' when friend told him to call ambulance as girlfriend died from drug overdose, court hears
‘I’m not sure he loved her. I don't know how you could ever say you loved someone if you left them to die in front of you,’ father John Michie tells manslaughter trial
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A man accused of manslaughter after his girlfriend died of a drug overdose at a music festival told his friend “I can’t get bagged” when urged to call her an ambulance, a court has heard.
In text messages presented at the trial of Ceon Broughton at Winchester Crown Court, Ezra Cambell told Mr Broughton to ensure Louella Fletcher-Michie received medical attention after taking the party drug 2-CP at Bestival on 10 September 2017.
The court heard that Mr Broughton replied, “I can’t get bagged”, and that Mr Campbell advised him, “Fam, just act like you don’t know her.”
The girl’s father, Holby City actor John Michie, said Mr Broughton “didn’t seem to be concerned” about his daughter’s wellbeing.
Ms Fletcher-Michie, 24, took the class A psychedelic at Bestival in Dorset. She died in woodland on the festival site an hour before her 25th birthday.
Mr Broughton, 29, of Enfield, north London, denies manslaughter and supplying the drug.
The jury heard Ms Fletcher-Michie’s parents were eating Sunday dinner in their north London home when they received a call from Mr Broughton.
Her father wept in the witness stand at Winchester Crown Court on Thursday as he recalled the day of her death.
Mr Michie told the jury: “The thing that I most remember was that Louella seemed very distressed. I could hear her in the background shouting things like ‘I hate you, I don’t trust you’, obviously referring to Ceon.
“I’ve never heard her speak in that way. It almost didn’t sound like her.”
Mr Broughton’s voice, on loudspeaker, sounded “watery”, “without energy in it” and he didn’t seem “compos mentis”, Mr Michie said.
He added: “He didn’t seem to be concerned, I thought. Obviously any normal person would be concerned.”
Ms Fletcher-Michie’s worried parents jumped in their car to go to find their daughter at the festival but struggled to gain entry or persuade security to look for her.
Their daughter was eventually found dead by a security steward in the woodland, 400 metres from the festival’s hospital tent, at around 1am, after Mr Broughton eventually left her to seek help.
The jury has previously been shown a 50-minute video in which Ms Fletcher-Michie shouts at her boyfriend to “film me”, “call my mum” and “call my brother, call my sister”.
He also took a photo of Ms Fletcher-Michie around the time she died as she lay motionless in undergrowth with her eyes closed, the court heard.
Mr Michie said he previously thought his daughter’s relationship had been “beautiful to see”. He issued a statement in support of Mr Broughton following press reports he was allegedly involved in murder.
But he said he had not realised “how he had not taken her to get help, how he had seen her in a very, very distressed state and how, I believe, he possibly even filmed her after she had died”.
He added: “I think Louella loved Ceon. I’m not sure he loved her. I don’t know how you could ever say you loved someone if you left them to die in front of you.”
Giving evidence, Louella’s mother, Carol Fletcher-Michie, said she had “trusted” Mr Broughton, who had spent a Christmas with the family.
She said her daughter sounded like a “wild animal” and was “screeching” in the call received from Mr Broughton.
“I couldn’t believe that was her voice and that’s the last time I heard her voice,” she told the court.
An emotional Ms Fletcher-Michie said her daughter loved dancing and taught Voga – a combination of yoga and dance – at festivals and retreats around the world.
She had an “open relationship” with her daughter and had discussed the need to be “careful” around drugs.
Ms Fletcher-Michie said she believed her daughter loved Mr Broughton “more than anyone she had before”.
Louella’s sister Daisy Fletcher-Michie and her brother Sam Fletcher-Michie also told the court how they had “begged” Mr Broughton on the phone to take Louella to a medical tent.
A tearful Daisy said she “so wanted to believe that Ceon had done everything he could” to help her sister, but claimed he “did nothing to help her and put himself first”.
She added: “If that was me and my boyfriend there is no way he wouldn’t have saved me.”
The trial continues.
Additional reporting by agencies