editorial comment New legal principle invented by the minute. Wonder if a person giving a gun to someone else could be charged too. Hum, paraphernalia will ask the NRA....

A MAN who took ecstasy with his wife was jailed yesterday after she died from an accidental overdose.

Richard Grimmer was branded "foolish" by a judge as he sentenced him to nine months in prison.

Grimmer, 29, and 23-year-old Rebecca, who had been married only 10 months, regularly took the drug for "recreational" purposes.

But she downed up to three pills after a night out and died of heart failure despite efforts to revive her.

Grimmer admitted possessing ecstasy with intent to supply and possessing cannabis.

James Beck, defending him at Derby crown court, said: "Apart from losing Rebecca, his best friend, he has also lost a promising career and everything he ever worked for."

Judge Andrew Hamilton told Grimmer: "It was so foolish to take a Class A drug which has been shown to cause the death of people.

"This is a devastating matter because you have lost your wife and that is the most enormous of punishments.

"But I have to mark this so the public realise this is what happens to people who dabble in drugs."

Computer programmer Grimmer, who now lives in Hereford, told an inquest last year that he and his office administrator wife regularly took the drug at their home in Ilkeston, Derbyshire.

He said: "Typically, we took ecstasy together once or twice a month. We had never experienced any ill-effects before."

One night in July, they bought 10 pills. He said: "I think Rebecca may have taken a tablet in the car before we got home and then she took another one or two about an hour after we got in.

"Once we started to feel the effects, myself and Rebecca went to bed."

He later rolled his wife into the recovery position to guard against the danger of her being sick while she slept.

He added: "I went downstairs once or twice to light a cigarette and when I came back I checked on her but I never thought to check if she was breathing."

When he tried to wake her later he realised that she was ill and called paramedics but she was declared dead.

A misadventure verdict was recorded after a postmortem showed she had five milligrams of ecstasy's active ingredient per litre of blood - with one milligram usually proving fatal.

Rebecca's mother Marion Davis said she was disappointed with the jail sentence. She said: "I expected him to get longer than that, but I really don't care how long he got because it is not going to bring my daughter back.

"To my knowledge, she had never taken ecstasy before she met him. I think he introduced her to them although I can't prove that because I'll never get her side of the story.

"Since Rebecca's death, we have not spoken to him. He has never said sorry, shown any remorse or tried to explain anything to us.

"He has moved away and, to my knowledge, has never put a single flower on her grave."

She added: "I would urge young people to stay away from drugs so they don't put their parents through what we've been though.

"If her death stops just one person taking them, then it's all been worth it and she has not died in vain."

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