![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/1_SANPICS_SHORT______12JPG.jpg\")
Anna Short says her family will never be the same again after Anya’s death at just 17(Image: STEVE ALLEN)<\/p>\nAnya Buckley from Oldham died at the festival in 2019 after taking a ‘cocktail of drugs’<\/p>\n
21:07, 20 Aug 2025Updated 21:09, 20 Aug 2025<\/p>\n
Anna Short says her family will never be the same again after Anya’s death at just 17(Image: STEVE ALLEN)<\/p>\n
A woman whose niece died at Leeds festival<\/a> in 2019 is calling for changes to the festival by urging event organisers to \u2018put people before profit\u2019 and show a greater duty of care to festivalgoers.<\/p>\n Anya Buckley, 17, from Oldham<\/a>, died from heart failure at the festival in 2019 after taking a ‘cocktail of drugs’. As thousands of revellers make their way to the event this weekend, Anna Short is reflecting on the tragic death of her niece.<\/p>\n \u201cAs soon as you get over one milestone, another one comes around,\u201d Anna, 52, a marketing consultant tells the Mirror<\/a>. \u201cIt\u2019s really difficult on family occasions, because there\u2019s somebody missing. Her birthday, Christmas<\/a>, weddings – any family event is really difficult. But the anniversary of her death is the day you never want to remember.\u201d<\/p>\n Like thousands of other teenagers, Anya was looking forward to letting her hair down at the popular event. Just back from enjoying a holiday with her friends, she had just gone \u2018official\u2019 with her boyfriend Jack, who she\u2019d been seeing for a few months. But she took a mixture of \u2018party drugs\u2019 – MDMA, ketamine and cocaine –<\/strong> and collapsed, dying from heart failure at the festival.<\/p>\n Never miss a story with the MEN’s daily Catch Up newsletter – get it in your inbox by signing up here<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n At her inquest<\/a> in <\/strong>January 2021 in Wakefield a pathologist concluded that Anya\u2019s death was caused by mixed drug toxicity, adding that the ecstasy she took was particularly strong.<\/p>\n Tragically, Anya\u2019s is not the only drug-related death to be associated with UK festivals. Between 2017 and 2023, 32 drug-related deaths (DRDs) were recorded at festivals in the UK -18 of which were people aged under 18.<\/p>\n The number could be even higher, according to drugs charity Loop, as currently there is no centralised system for recording drug deaths at festivals and events.<\/p>\n Now, Anya\u2019s close relatives and the families of other teenagers who have lost their lives in similar circumstances are urging event organisers to \u2018put people before profit\u2019 and show a greater duty of care to festivalgoers.<\/p>\n As well as drug testing at all festivals, they want young people to be educated on their potential dangers. And they want festival organisers to ensure there is a constant supply of free water and that swift medical help is available, should something go wrong.<\/p>\n Anna, of Oldham<\/a>, who doted on her niece, says: \u201cAnya came along before me and my husband had our own children, so we were very close. She was a bit like a daughter to us before our daughter came along and when she got older she was like a sister to my children. Now my daughter Lily is the same age as Anya when she died. It does impact me psychologically.<\/p>\n \u201cAll parents worry, naturally, but I\u2019m far worse when it comes to my children after what happened to my niece. It\u2019s heartbreaking to think Anya will never grow up to have children of her own. She was always there each time another baby arrived in the family. She\u2019d be fussing over them because she absolutely loved babies.\u201d<\/p>\n Join the Manchester Evening News <\/strong>WhatsApp<\/strong> group <\/strong>HERE<\/a><\/p>\n Sadly, Anya\u2019s death was followed three years later by that of David Celino, 16, from Worsley<\/a>, in Greater Manchester<\/a>, who died in hospital after taking MDMA he bought at Leeds Festival in August 2022.<\/p>\n David\u2019s father, Gianpiero Celino, told his son\u2019s inquest in August 2023 he believed that unaccompanied under 18s, who aren\u2019t old enough to legally buy alcohol, fall foul of drug dealers, who operate like \u201cthe child catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang,\u201d due to lax security at festivals.<\/p>\n Tragic cases like those of Anya and David have led to calls from concerned families for event organisers, police and the government to improve safety at UK festivals – where there are, on average, five or six drug-related deaths each year, according to experts at Liverpool University.<\/p>\n Anya\u2019s aunt wants festivalgoers, who are tempted to take \u2018party drugs,\u2019 to have access to information about the dangers, so they can make an informed decision before they do so. Anna has been working with The Loop, which offers drug testing at festivals like Parklife in Manchester and Secret Garden Party in <\/strong>Cambridgeshire, <\/strong>and she has been visiting schools to explain to young people what her family is going through.<\/p>\n \u201cNot enough is being done at festivals – particularly Leeds Festival – as David Celino lost his life a few years after Anya,\u201d Anna adds. \u201cIt feels like the organisers just accept that this is what happens, which really makes me angry. They should be putting people before profit and it\u2019s absolutely appalling. Anya\u2019s death was so unnecessary. The UK is well behind other countries when it comes to drug policy.\u201d<\/p>\n As well as offering free drug testing, she also wants festival organisers to show a duty of care to the thousands of young people who buy tickets for events like Leeds – which this year costs \u00a3325 for a weekend pass. She says that, while all festivals are obliged to offer free water to people attending, in reality, this often isn\u2019t the case.<\/p>\n \u201cThe day Anya died it was the hottest day of the year and all the catering vans had run out of water,\u201d Anna claims. \u201cThey had a few taps with free water but we were told the queues were an hour and a half long. What young person is going to wait that long when all they want to do is go and see the next act? Having access to water is a basic human right.<\/p>\n \u201cNobody helped her boyfriend get her to the medical area and it took him 45 minutes to get her there on his own. The security staff didn\u2019t take it seriously. Why weren\u2019t they trained in what to look out for? You also can\u2019t help but wonder if she\u2019d received medical attention sooner would she still be with us now?\u201d<\/p>\n Anna wonders why under 18s are allowed into Leeds and Reading Festival – its sister event which runs the same weekend – <\/strong>in the first place. \u201cSome festivals don’t allow under 18s in. For one, 16 to 18 year olds are too young to legally buy alcohol and aren\u2019t used to drinking – never mind anything else. Reading and Leeds festivals tend to be the only ones that let under 18s in.\u201d<\/p>\n Alleging that making money is the motive for letting younger teens attend, she continues:\u201d It\u2019s wrong. We live in a country that doesn\u2019t class a child as an adult until they\u2019re 18. They can\u2019t go to nightclubs and can\u2019t go drinking in pubs. If someone loses their life in a nightclub, that club gets shut down. The same doesn\u2019t happen with a festival. It\u2019s not good enough.<\/p>\n \u201cAnya\u2019s death was a huge shock. Sometimes I still question \u2018did that actually happen?\u2019 It didn’t need to happen, it was so unnecessary. I want all festivals to do the right thing by young people. If you\u2019re going to let them in, put the right measures in place to keep them safe.<\/p>\n “Anya lit up the room everywhere she went – she was kind, caring and funny. We miss her smile and her laugh, she was a real giggler. The pain doesn\u2019t go away, it never will, time isn\u2019t a healer. Life for our family will never be the same again.\u201d<\/p>\n Leeds Festival organisers Festival Republic <\/strong>were contacted for comment. Kate Porter, CEO of The Loop, says: \u201cIt is difficult to understand the extent of drug-related deaths at festivals in the UK as there isn’t a joined-up approach to collating this information.<\/p>\n “A database or similar would be helpful as we could look at contributing factors and work out what interventions could have reduced harm. What we do know, is that every drug death is potentially preventable. \u201c<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Anya Buckley from Oldham died at the festival in 2019 after taking a ‘cocktail of drugs’ 21:07, 20…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":360329,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8814],"tags":[748,393,4884,1860,603,1286,125268,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-360328","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-leeds","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-leeds","12":"tag-national-news","13":"tag-oldham","14":"tag-reading-and-leeds-festivals","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115063082605803286","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=360328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360328\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/360329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=360328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=360328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=360328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/0_SR_MENN_140421Anya-Buckley-2019-2JPG.jpg\")
(Image: Family Handout)<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/1_David-Celino-death.jpg\")
David Celino was only 16 when he died after taking ecstacy at Leeds Festival in 2022(Image: PA)<\/p>\n