A 15-year-old boy tragically found dead after attending a party in Penparcau had suffered an overdose of ecstasy.

Teenager Joel Dibble, from Talybont, died on Friday, 7 April, last year and his body was found on the morning of Saturday, 8 April, by a woman walking her dog at Pen Dinas.

An inquest heard that Mr Dibble had attended a party on the Friday night, where one witness gave a statement that said that Mr Dibble seemed to be intoxicated.

A post-mortem revealed levels of ecstasy that suggested Mr Dibble had taken a large amount of the drug, as well as cannabis.

Ceredigion coroner Peter Brunton said that Mr Dibble had been known to use ecstasy but that the “terrible tragedy” came after he took too much of the drug.

PC Sarah Smith said Mr Dibble’s body was discovered by a woman who was walking her dog at around 7.30am. Paramedics were called out, but Mr Dibble was declared dead at the scene.

Mr Brunton said there had been instances where Mr Dibble, a former Penglais School pupil who had been attending the Pupil Referral Unit in Aberaeron, had been involved with the police, including for possession of ecstasy, and that it suggested that he had “gone off the rails” for some reason.

He said that there was no suggestion that anyone else had administered the drug to Mr Dibble or that there had been third-party involvement, and that it was not known where the drug came from or how Mr Dibble got it.

Mr Brunton said he could not record a verdict of accidental death as Mr Dibble had knowingly taken the ecstasy, but that he had “succumbed to the levels of ecstasy in his system”.

That led to a verdict of misadventure, with Mr Brunton adding: “It was a terrible tragedy that on this particular evening he took too much.”

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