Brit tourist Kirsty Maxwell had taken NO drugs but was THREE TIMES the drink-drive limit when she fell from ‘Benidorm Five’ balcony
BENIDORM hen do holidaymaker Kirsty Maxwell was more than three times the drink-drive limit when she died - but had NOT taken drugs, tests confirm.
The criminal court probing the British tourist’s death has been told no illegal substances were found in her body after she plunged from a tenth-floor apartment on April 29.
Tests showed she had a blood alcohol concentration of 2.79 milligrams per litre - putting her three and a half times over the English drink-drive limit and more than five times the limit in Spain and Scotland.
The report emerged less than a fortnight before a crunch court hearing where four British men placed under formal investigation over Kirsty’s death will be quizzed by a Spanish judge.
Amazon worker Joseph Graham, the fifth man who is facing a court probe and the only one hauled to court so far to give evidence, has not been summonsed to the July 26 hearing.
Mr Graham, 32, told cops he believed "paranoid and confused" Kirsty may have taken drugs before she wandered into the lads' holiday apartment and threw herself off the balcony.
Experts at Spain’s National Institutute of Toxicology and Forensic Sciences tested for a string of drugs ranging from barbiturates through to methadone, amphetamines, cannabis and cocaine.
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The report confirmed: “In the blood and urine samples analysed, none of the toxicological substances of interest investigated were detected.”
It is expected to form a key part of the legal argument about whether Kirsty fell or was pushed and whether she was fleeing something that made her fearful.
Newlywed Kirsty, 27, of Livingston, West Lothian, was on her pal's hen do in the Spanish resort and was staying in another holiday flat in the block.
Her family and friends have never hidden the fact she had been drinking on the night she died - but have always angrily denied any drug-taking.
Family lawyer Luis Miguel Zumaquero said today: “We always knew there was going to be a high blood alcohol level because Kirsty’s friends said they had been drinking.
“But that doesn’t justify her throwing herself out of an apartment with five men inside.”
Kirsty’s alcohol consumption is expected to be seized upon by Joseph Graham’s lawyer Roberto Sanchez.
The toxicology report says the effect of drinking that much booze include: "Disorientation, mental confusion, vertigo; an exaggerated emotional state including fear and anger; alteration of sensations and perception of colour, shape, movement and dimensions; reduction of the feeling of pain; alterations in balance, muscular incoordination, walking and speech problems.”
Mr Sanchez confirmed he was now the lawyer of the other four men as well as Mr Graham, and said they were all innocent of any wrongdoing.
They have been named as Ricky Gammon, 31, Anthony Holehouse, 34, Callum Northridge, 27, and Daniel Bailey, 32.
Mr Sanchez said: “The amount of alcohol in Kirsty’s blood was significant and a sufficient amount for a person to become disorientated and for the tragic accident that’s taken place here to occur.”
All five British men - who have come to be known as the Benidorm Five - were told they were now under formal investigation in May.
The court decision followed a fight by a lawyer acting for Kirsty’s family to have them summonsed to Spain and questioned in court as “investigados” - a new legal term in Spain which literally means under investigation.
None of the five have been formally accused of any crime as is customary in Spain where charges are only laid shortly before trial.
Kirsty's distraught family, who travelled to Benidorm recently, blasted suggestions she was suicidal, on drugs, or attempting to leap into the pool of the apartment block.
Widower Adam Maxwell said: “Something dark happened in that room - and I won’t rest until I know the truth.
“Kirsty was happy and healthy and had everything to live for. It’s crazy to suggest she killed herself.”
Her relatives are now appealing directly to holidaymakers who they believe may have witnessed the balcony horror, to contact them.
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