'DRUGS OVERDOSE' KILLED GIRL, 15, ON CHRISTMAS NIGHT

A girl aged 15 died on Christmas night after a suspected drugs overdose. If
the cause of death is confirmed, Kerry-Ann Kirk, from Coatbridge,
Strathclyde, would be the youngest drug victim of 1999 in a region that has
seen a 50 per cent rise in drug-related deaths in the past year.

She is thought to have died from an overdose of the heroin substitute
methadone. Her body was found at the house of a school friend, where she
had been at a party, on Boxing Day.

Her mother, Marie Kirk, 39, said yesterday: "It's unbelievable. She was
always in for 11 o'clock. I knew they would have something or other at the
party but I thought it would be something like [the alcopop] Hooch."

She added: "Kerry had nothing to do with drugs, she hated them. If there
were drugs involved I would take it that someone put them in her drink or
something like that. I do not think she would have taken drugs."

Mrs Kirk said her older children, Gary, 17, and Cheryl, 12, were shocked by
the tragedy but the younger ones, aged three and three months were too
young to understand. "All Gary could say about it was, 'It's disgraceful,
it's disgraceful'. Cheryl was screaming and saying, 'You just don't die on
Boxing Day'," she said.

Seven other people have died in separate drug-related incidents in
Strathclyde over the Christmas period, bringing the total for the year to
146, up from 100 last year. A spokeswoman for Strathclyde Police said most
of the recent deaths were linked with heroin, although they were widely
spread geographically and were unlikely to be caused by a bad batch of the
drug.

Kerry-Ann had left her parents' home at about 7pm on Christmas night to
attend the party at the home of a friend. The friend's father, Kevin Stack,
said yesterday that he and his wife had supervised the party and seen
nothing untoward happening. "We were keeping an eye on things and didn't
see any drugs or anything like that," he said.

Mr Stack said that around midnight he told youngsters it was time to go
home. "We thought that Kerry-Ann had already gone because we didn't see
her. It was about 1pm the next day that we found her in the bedroom.
Someone had thrown a cover over her and she must have been there all
night." A new Scottish Drug Enforcement Agency was launched earlier this
month and is intended to be operational by June. It will be staffed by
police recruited from across Scotland, in an attempt to co-ordinate drug
enforcement policies properly.