Mystery of teen Becky Brock killed in Ibiza celebrating A-Levels after bags of party drug Ecstasy burst in her stomach with British cops claiming the case ‘stinks’
Questions still surround the exact cause of the 18-year-old's death as does the sinister silence of her close pals
IT was Becky Brock’s favourite place – Ibiza, home of cloudless skies and non-stop parties.
Yet it was on the White Isle one late summer night in a cheap hotel room that the 18-year-old’s life was snuffed out.
She was alone and her body had been poisoned by enough class-A drugs to kill two people.
This week Nottingham coroner’s court heard that the likeliest cause of her sudden death in 2015 was MDMA intoxication after a bag of party drug ecstasy burst in her stomach.
Coroner Mairin Casey said: “How these bags were in her stomach, we will never know.”
Her words were cold comfort for Becky’s parents, Martin and Margaretha, who were desperate to know the truth about their daughter’s death.
As Margaretha said outside the court: “There are some answers but there are also some clear gaps.”
So what did happen to Becky?
Was she a smuggler?
Did she die from an accidental overdose? Or did something more sinister lead to her death?
Having achieved “great success” in her A levels, according to her headmaster at the Colonel Frank Seely School in Nottingham, Becky first visited Ibiza in July 2015.
She went back again in August and made her final trip to catch the end-of-season parties in late September, when two friends were also there to celebrate birthdays.
Her three trips in quick succession triggered speculation that she might have been a drugs mule.
A friend of Becky’s told The Sun: “The Spanish police’s first thought was this was a drug trafficking situation. It’s relatively common there.”
Ibiza, notorious for its 24/7 partying, is awash with dealers who charge up to €70 (£64) for ecstasy tablets — four or five times the going rate on mainland Europe.
Just this week five Brits were arrested in San Antonio following the seizure of drugs including thousands of ecstasy pills.
Becky had somehow managed to afford three holidays to a place that Thomas Cook this week said was becoming too expensive for the under-25s.
Yet her only known income is understood to have been from her job at the clothing shop Oasis in her home city.
She had also flown to Ibiza by herself from Holland, a well-known hub for making ecstasy.
Becky had dual UK- Dutch nationality and had just begun studying law at Tilburg University in the south of the country.
But suggestions that she was a drugs mule started to wobble when the results of the autopsy came in.
A family friend said: “When they got the results the police said it’s impossible that she could have been smuggling because people don’t traffic drugs in this way.
"The way they were wrapped in her body, they could have come apart within hours.”
It is also unclear that the amount of ecstasy inside Becky was enough to have any serious commercial value. Wraps of MDMA sell for a maximum of €70 (£64) in Ibiza.
This points to the possibility that the drugs were intended for her or her Ibiza friends’ personal use, but started leaking into her system before she could retrieve them.
She arrived on September 22, when she was seen on CCTV checking into the Marco Polo, a £70-a-night hotel in San Antonio, for six nights.
A family friend says she met a group of friends that night, at least one of whom she had known since childhood.
After midnight, four of the group plus Becky headed by bus to the well-known club, Pacha, in Ibiza Town.
They arrived around 2am.
Tickets were expensive — more than £60 each — but even so the group did not stay long.
Three decided to leave after half an hour.
Becky and the remaining friend then left by taxi about half an hour later, at 3am.
Why did they leave? Was Becky meant to supply them with drugs?
Did an attempt to pass them in the club fail?
Becky certainly appeared to be unhappy that day. She sent three tweets in quick succession pointing to some sort of disagreement.
The final one said: “Won’t make a habit of the hormonal Twitter preaching I just have time to kill and I’ve run out of my painkillers.”
It’s not known who the tweets were for but they clearly made an impression on dad, Martin, a therapist, who has since retweeted them.
CCTV footage from her hotel showed Becky returning there alone at about 3.45am.
A Do Not Disturb sign was hung on her door. This was the last time she was seen alive.
Becky’s friends stayed in another hotel a couple of streets away.
But oddly, none seems to have raised the alarm when she didn’t appear next day — or for the rest of the week.
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Chillingly, some of this group apparently showed little if any emotion when they learned of Becky’s death from her family, and have since closed ranks in something resembling a conspiracy of silence.
Coroner Mairin Casey said Becky was not seen taking any drugs in Ibiza and had very little alcohol in her bloodstream.
Foul play has also been ruled out because there is nothing to suggest Becky was assaulted.
According to a family friend Becky “stopped talking to the world” on social media on the morning of September 23.
It was a further five days before her body was found. But when exactly she died is also a mystery.
Toxicologist Dr Stephen Morley told the coroner that Spanish authorities found she had died about 48 hours before she was found in her room.
He said traces of alcohol and a “potentially fatal concentration” of ecstasy were found in her body.
But the accuracy of the Spanish toxicology has come into question.
It found she would have died around September 26 but nobody has reported seeing her after the early hours of September 23.
Becky’s parents strongly dispute the idea that she swallowed the drugs willingly.
Margaretha told the coroner this week: “It was my understanding that there had been found material removed from her abdomen.
“It was described as a body pack. She wouldn’t take any pills easily. I can’t imagine that getting in her body at all.
“If she didn’t have to take a pill she wouldn’t do because she couldn’t swallow it. I can’t see any other way than someone making that happen.”
Yet Becky was no stranger to drugs.
She admitted to her mother shortly before her death that she had tried cocaine in Ibiza that summer.
And her Twitter feed suggests she had a wild streak and would stay up all night clubbing with friends.
At the pre-inquest hearing in July, coroner Casey said evidence from Becky’s mobile phone had alluded to drug use.
She said: “I have no difficulty in accepting that the family were not aware of this, but in light of what’s already been disclosed, and information from Rebecca’s phone, it would be very difficult for me to find that she did not partake in illicit drugs.”
As she had dabbled in drugs, it doesn’t seem unrealistic to suggest Becky did swallow ecstasy knowingly.
But her family is frustrated that the Spanish police did not pursue the possibility of a criminal element in Becky’s death and they have been told privately by British police that something about the case “stinks”.
They say — and the coroner is understood to agree — the Spanish police investigation was less robust than it would be in the UK.
The coroner is known to have been hampered by the slow progress of the Spanish authorities and believes her inquest could not be more conclusive because their investigation was not as full or detailed as a UK police force would carry out.
Even so, the police have closed the case and would not speak to The Sun in Ibiza or offer up a statement.
Becky’s exhausted parents have hit a roadblock, and friends of the family say they are resigned to the fact that they may never know exactly why their daughter died.
And that leaves Becky as yet another tragic young casualty of the party drug that is seemingly more popular — and deadlier — than ever.