Alcohol death: Parents tell of their grief

Charles and Penny Webster say they'll never be happy again after the death of their son, James. Photo / Dean Purcell

A dreadful feeling came over Penny Webster when she saw the police car pull up outside her Thames home.

Mrs Webster had driven home after a Mother's Day tramp in the hills last Sunday and noticed the police car following.

She checked she wasn't speeding.

She stopped at her letterbox and so did the police. Two officers got out of the car. Her heart sank.

"When I saw there was two of them my heart dropped and I thought 'uh-oh'. My first thought was 'who has crashed - Charles or James?"'

Neither her husband Charles nor her son, James, 16, had been in a car crash, but the news was devastating.

James, who she thought had spent the night at a friend's house in Auckland doing homework, was dead.

"I just couldn't believe it when they said he'd died in his sleep after getting drunk."

Charles Webster was in Auckland. When police rang him with the news he fell to the ground.

"I started howling so loudly the neighbours came over to see what was wrong. I threw the phone away, I fell on the ground and I thumped it and I banged my head and I howled like I couldn't believe."

He picked up daughter Emily, who like James was a boarder at King's College, and they went to the morgue.

"I identified the body. Emily was very distraught and didn't want to see James. We were both beside ourselves. I was almost paralytic with grief."

James had been at a party - the first real one he had been to in the city.

If he'd told his parents the truth, they say they would have let him go - but they would have made sure he was dropped off and picked up.

Friends say his behaviour that night was out of character.

He sculled neat vodka from a bottle he had taken from his grandmother's home and lied to his parents about what he was doing.

He told them he was going to a friend's place for dinner. The friend would help with his English homework and he would have an early night.

"The story was 'there's no point going home because I have to be back here at nine o'clock anyway [for a chemistry tutorial] and I'm going to get great help tonight'," said Mr Webster.

The tutorial didn't exist but James needed an excuse to stay in Auckland.

After speaking to his father, he went to a friend's home for a roast lamb dinner and arranged costumes for the party, a combined birthday celebration for two female friends.

James went as the Grim Reaper.

The Websters said the party, at the Grey Lynn RSA, was in a controlled environment with security at the door and was well-organised.

James arrived at 7.30pm. But outside the party, he started drinking from the vodka bottle. Like it was water, one friend said later. Others in the group drank from two bottles of Jagermeister.

The Websters were told he was found collapsed in the toilet at 8.30pm, only an hour after he arrived.

The father of one of the hosts, a civilian police employee from Manukau, carried him outside. "We understand he put him in the recovery position and James vomited twice."

He was left lying on the grass comatose in the recovery position, Mrs Webster said.

"We were absolutely crushed."

Mrs Webster didn't want to blame anyone.

At 10.30pm one of the organisers went outside and asked a student for James' parents' phone number but was told they couldn't come to get him because they lived in Thames. No phone call was made.

The police employee picked James up and drove him back to the house of a mother of partygoer.

He was carried inside and put in the spare bed. He vomited again. His friends fell asleep.

"James was still comatose, unresponsive. They woke up in the morning ... James was dead."

The Websters told the Herald last night they had visited the house where their son died, and had spoken to as many people possible to try to build a picture of what happened.

Mr Webster said alcohol was not part of the family's life. They did not have it at home, and James was not used to drinking.

Of the night he died, Mrs Webster said: "He thought 'I'm going to take this bottle and have a good time'.

"The sad thing is he wouldn't have known the difference between a bottle of vodka and a bottle of ginger beer."

Mrs Webster said everyone tried to help James to the best of their knowledge - but her husband said their best judgment was deficient.

She said the country needed to look after teenagers better.

"He chose to take the drink and chose to drink it. If we could, we'd turn the clock back."

It was not cool to egg each other on and drink vast amounts of alcohol.

"We need to look after each other," she said.

Mr Webster said they thought "he was the most wonderful boy in the world".

Looking back at the times they spent together there was nothing they would change.

"Apart from the day he decided to do this there's nothing I would have done different," Mrs Webster said.

The devastated parents said they wanted people to learn from their son's death.

"Look after your mates, don't let them get drunk," Mr Webster told TVNZ's Close Up programme.

"Stop them drinking, encourage them to be fun people, not comatose drunkards, and, when they do get to that point, for God's sake ring the ambulance.

"Alcohol is a very, very dangerous drug. Hard liquor is completely poisonous to us, and unless taken with care and moderation it will do this to you.

"Unfortunately, through the result of his own actions, he ended up dead and he's left his family absolutely devastated."

Through tears, Mr Webster said he and his wife would never be happy again.

"When you think of the effort you go to to bring up your child, the help that you give him to get involved in sports, the effort you go to to help him through a school project.

"How much more help would you be prepared to give him to save his life?"