Toxic diet pill dealer loses appeal against manslaughter conviction
An online dealer who sold toxic tablets marketed as "slimming pills" which fatally poisoned a vulnerable young woman has lost a challenge against his conviction for her manslaughter.
Bernard Rebelo, 33, from Gosport in Hampshire, was found guilty at the Old Bailey in March last year of the manslaughter of Eloise Parry, 21, from Shrewsbury, who died after taking eight pills containing the poisonous substance dinitrophenol (DNP).
Rebelo challenged his conviction at a Court of Appeal hearing in November last year, with his lawyers arguing the trial judge Mrs Justice Whipple misdirected the jury in relation to whether his actions caused Ms Parry's death.
They also argued his trial should have been postponed after he sacked his legal team at the close of the prosecution's case, to give his new lawyers time to prepare his defence.
But, in a ruling on Monday, three senior judges rejected Rebelo's appeal and upheld his conviction.
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Dame Victoria Sharp, giving the court's ruling, said the judge's directions had been agreed by Rebelo's original lawyers, adding: "In our view there was nothing wrong with them."
She added: "Specifically, the jury were accurately directed on the issue of causation and their approach to the core issue of 'free, voluntary and informed consent'.
"It follows that the appeal against conviction must be dismissed."
The judge also said there was "no merit" in the argument that the trial should have been postponed, saying the only reason a new legal team was involved was because Rebelo had chosen to sack his original lawyers.
Rebelo was jailed for seven years in 2018 after he was convicted for the first time of manslaughter in relation to Ms Parry's death at Inner London Crown Court.
That conviction was overturned by the Court of Appeal in 2019 and a retrial was ordered, and he was again handed a seven-year jail term after being found guilty a second time in March last year.
During his second trial at the Old Bailey, the court heard Rebelo bought the DNP in powder form from a chemical factory in China, and sold it on as tablets to people around the world, including to Ms Parry.
The court heard how the yellow powder Ms Parry consumed was often advertised as a slimming product, but the known side effects included multiple organ failure, coma and cardiac arrest.
During the First World War it had been used as a base material for munitions products.
Prosecutor Richard Barraclough QC told the jury that online forums compared consuming the chemical to "Russian roulette", adding: "If you take it you might live or you might die."
Ms Parry, from Shrewsbury in Shropshire, who had been diagnosed with the eating disorder bulimia, became "psychologically addicted" to the chemical after she started taking it in February 2015, jurors heard.
The court heard that DNP was particularly dangerous to those who suffer from eating disorders as the toxicity level is relative to a person's weight.
Ms Parry was admitted to Wrexham Hospital on March 10, 2015, after collapsing, and texted a friend, saying: "I f***** up. A and E. DNP overdose. Feel so f****** stupid.
"I knew I could not control my eating disorder well enough to take them safely, I knew it. It's not going to matter how skinny I am if I'm dead."
Three days later, she messaged: "I don't want to die. I never meant to hurt myself. I just felt so desperate.
"I've been trying so hard to be OK with my body and myself that I pushed down all of those negative feelings instead of dealing with them."
Rebelo, who ran his business from a flat in Harrow, west London, had sold DNP on websites which were later taken down.
The prosecution alleged that he did so despite knowing of the dangers of taking it.
Rebelo denied manslaughter, but declined to give evidence in his defence at the retrial.
Of the 98 reported cases of DNP poisoning in the UK between 2007 and 2017, 14 resulted in death. There were six deaths in 2015 alone, the court heard.
