THE mother of Stacey Laight, the North-East teenager who died after taking Ecstasy, spoke out last night after another teenager died from taking the drug.

When Barbara Laight, 37, read last week of the death of 15-year-old Middlesbrough girl Lisa Teasdale, it brought back vivid memories.

Stacey, also 15, died in the University Hospital of Hartlepool in May, after taking a suspected cocktail of Ecstasy, alcohol and prescription drugs.

At the time, Ms Laight, of Hall Crescent, Horden, near Peterlee, County Durham, was too upset to speak to reporters, but issued a statement through the police. Now, following Lisa's death, she is anxious to prevent another similar tragedy.

She has sent a sympathy card to Mr and Mrs Teasdale, and said she understood how they must feel. "I don't want to bother the family, but I really do know what they are going through," she said.

"In the beginning, I was so shocked. I was numb. I kept a lot inside, which I think you do."

Stacey took Ecstasy during a night out in Hartlepool with her older cousin, Claire Winstanley, and Claire's friends.

Ms Winstanley is on bail in connection with the supply of controlled drugs, and another member of the group has been charged with supplying a prescribed drug.

Ms Laight said the tragedy had torn the family apart. "My brother, John, is Claire's dad, and it has devastated him," she said.

The inquest into how Stacey died has been suspended until the results of toxicology tests are known, prolonging the family's grief. Ms Laight said it made her angry to think that the anti-drugs message was not getting through.

"You are always going to have drug pushers and children are going to try them," she said. "I just dread the thought of it happening again."

Ms Laight said she found it hard not to wrap Stacey's 13-year-old brother, David, in cotton wool after the tragedy.

She said: "I'm never going to get over what happened. Stacey would have been 16 on Remembrance Day. Her friends really miss her, and still put cards and letters on her grave. She was a beautiful girl."