Poisoned British lawyer’s mother fears she may never find out who is responsible

The mother of a British lawyer who died after allegedly being served drinks laced with methanol in Laos said she fears she may never find out who is responsible for her daughter’s death.

Simone White, 28, from Orpington, Kent, was one of a number of people taken to hospital after the incident in the popular backpacking town of Vang Vieng.

Simone’s mother Sue White and Simone’s best friend Bethany told ITV News that the police investigation in Laos is yet to provide them with any answers.

They added that they fear they will never know who was responsible for Simone’s death, ITV News reported.

Ms White said: “They’re not releasing any information, no statements or anything.

“I think it’s very unlikely any individual anyway, will be convicted of the crime ever.

“It’s unexplained as to why it affected Simone so much worse than (others)… we’ve got no answer to that at all.

“There’s been a post-mortem (examination), we’ve got no results of that. Whether it was her metabolism and she processed it more quickly or differently to the others? We don’t know, but we’ve got no answers at all.”

Bethany, who was with Simone in Laos, described how on the night she watched the hostel bartender pour the shots from a “typical vodka bottle” and then ordered Sprite to mix them with, ITV News reported.

The hostel owner has previously denied shots given at their bar were responsible for the poisoning, ITV News reported.

Bethany said they ordered five or six shots each over the course of two-and-a-half hours and said the drinks did not taste as strong as she expected, then they started to feel unwell the next day.

She described feeling tired and “just not really being able to move the muscles that you want to move when you want to move them”.

When Simone started being sick, and Bethany fainted, their friend suggested they go to hospital.

Bethany said that when they arrived, staff at the local hospital initially wrongly suspected either food poisoning or drugs, ITV News reported.

All three were given treatment, but by this time Simone’s condition was deteriorating.

The friends decided to be transferred to a private hospital but by the time they arrived there, more than 24 hours after consuming the drinks, “it was just too late”, Bethany added.

The next morning, Ms White woke up to a message from Bethany and she booked a flight to Laos.

But at 2am, the night before she was due to fly, Ms White received a phone call from Bethany and one of the hospital doctors, asking her to give permission for Simone to have brain surgery.

Ms White said: “As soon as they said brain surgery I just knew she wasn’t going to make it. Like mother’s intuition… I just knew.”

Ms White arrived as Simone was taken to surgery, and on the Sunday evening after a CT scan they were told Simone had 5% brain power and by Monday it had gone down to zero.

Ms White said: “We just told her how much she was loved and how much she’d be missed… hopefully she did hear something.

“I’m so grateful I was there by her bedside. But it was absolutely soul destroying. Obviously that picture is going to be in my mind forevermore.”

Ms White said she was told she would have to switch off Simone’s life support herself as the doctors could not do it for religious reasons.

She said: “It was awful. I had my husband and my son on the end of the phone, but I was in the room on my own.

“I turned the machine off and then 30 seconds later the backup ventilator came into operation. It was just horrific.”

Ms White said that happened twice, and that doctors then asked her to remove the breathing tube from her daughter’s mouth.

She said: “I think it probably took an hour for us to actually terminate the ventilator.

“Nothing will ever compare to that… what we all had to go through in that hospital. It was just devastating.”

Police in Laos have detained several people in connection with the death of Simone and five others, who are also believed to have been poisoned.

Bethany has started a petition for UK schools to educate children about methanol poisoning.

And Ms White is calling for testing strips to be made widely available at an affordable cost for travellers, so they can test their drinks for methanol.

Ms White told ITV News: “She just loved life and… used to make the most of every minute.”