Retrial for man in Leah ecstasy case

A teenager accused of being involved in buying the ecstasy tablet which killed Leah Betts is to face a retrial next year.

Steven Packman, 18, of Laindon, Essex, will stand trial in February at Norwich Crown Court. A jury failed to reach a verdict earlier this week after a seven-day trial. Mr Packman had denied the charge.

His former friend, Stephen Smith, 19, of Basildon, Essex, was given a two-year conditional discharge at the same court yesterday after admitting the same offence. The judge told him: "Go back and spread the message as to just how dangerous ecstasy is. If in doing that you stop some other person from taking this drug with tragic consequences you will have made up in some part for what you did."