14 year old girl left in coma after footballer slipped ecstasy tablet into her mouth as they kissed

An angry mum is pushing for a footballer to be jailed after he slipped a strong ecstasy tablet into her 14-year-old daughter’s mouth while kissing her.

The accused, Stefan MacRitchie, 20, who recently signed for Strathspey Thistle FC, has pleaded guilty to supplying the class A “Nintendo” drug which left the victim fighting for her life.

The teenager who cannot be named for legal reasons,  had a “50-50 chance of survival” and was put into a coma after swallowing the drug. Her mum said the 'Nintendo' drug left her daughter 'crawling on the floor' “throwing herself off the bed, banging her head off it” during the horrific ordeal.

“My daughter was throwing herself off the bed, banging her head off it, crawling on the floor. It was like something out of the horror movie The Exorcist. She was black and blue. 

“We were holding her, trying to keep her safe, but she was hallucinating, thinking things were coming out of the walls to get her. I was trying to comfort her but she was lashing out, although every now and then she’d come out of it and say, ‘Mum, mum, help me, help me, stop this, stop this’. Her face was so swollen, she looked as if she’d been in a car crash.”

The incident which happened in January 1, 2014 still infuriates the mum as she is fighting for the accused to be sentenced to jail.

Prosecutor Michelle Molley told Inverness Sheriff Court that the girl and the accused, MacRitchie got together at a New Year’s house party. The adult owners of the house were in at the time, but most of the guests were under 18 and knew each other from school.

Molley said:

“She and the accused met and began kissing. During the kiss, the accused passed one item from inside his mouth into her mouth. The complainer swallowed the item. The complainer asked the accused what he had put into her mouth and he replied, ‘eccies’.  After taking the drug the teen broke away from MacRitchie to get help from her friends.

 

Her parents were heading back from a party of their own when the mum received a call to her daughter had “taken ecstasy”.
The mum told the court:

“Around 1am, we were just heading back into Inverness when I got a call to say my daughter was in an ambulance on her way to Raigmore Hospital and that she’d taken ecstasy. As we pulled up in front of A&E, her ambulance drew up. The back doors opened and I was just shocked by what I saw – it wasn’t like my daughter. She was shouting, ‘Mum, mum’. She’d been biting her mouth. It was horrendous – her mouth was bleeding. She’d been pulling her bottom lip into her top teeth and her lip was swelling up. Because they didn’t know what she’d ingested, they couldn’t treat her to begin with and they put us into a room in A&E. We removed the bed for her own safety.

“I phoned the party and asked if anyone could tell me what she’d taken. They were called Nintendos. The tablets were different colours. A friend said she’d gone into the bathroom with Stefan and she came out in a terrible state.”

In hospital the dad was said to have had to keep his daughter under control by wrapping his legs around her.
The mum continued:

“She kept freaking out, thinking spiders were crawling all over her. It was horrible. They took her to a resuscitation room to try to sedate her. They were having to hold her down. Her heartbeat was going off the scale. They decided to give her another injection and that didn’t work. By this time, it was 4.30am and her brain was showing signs of swelling. The only option was to put her into a coma. We asked what her chances were and they told us 50-50 and that when they did wake her up, there was a chance of brain damage.

“She was put in a coma around 5am and taken off it around 3pm, but kept in intensive care until 9pm. In the afternoon, they took her off the ventilator and she was able to breathe on her own but she was still hallucinating. She was kept in hospital for a further four nights, receiving intravenous treatment twice daily to counteract the cocktail of drugs in the ecstasy. Later, she took quite a bit of time off school. She was embarrassed – everybody was talking about it.

“She failed to sit her exams. She’d always been a top student. Her teachers were quite shocked at the change in her. She stopped socialising. She’s stopped going to her receptionist’s job after bumping into Stefan. People who say he didn’t mean any harm don’t know the effect it’s had on her. She was confident and outgoing and had loads of friends. 

“Obviously, we want a custodial sentence.”

The accused, Shane MacRitchie who admitted giving the girl the drug will be sentenced later this month.