A CARE worker drowned in the sea after taking ecstasy and smoking cannabis, an inquest heard.

Charlotte Root-Reed, of Gorelands Lane, Chalfont St Giles, was pulled from freezing water at Eastbourne, on February 25 after spending the evening with her friend Ian McCormack who lived in the town.

The 27-year-old, who worked with disabled people, took a number of ecstasy pills during an evening out with Mr McCormack at a nightclub before returning with two other men to his bedsit.

The Eastbourne inquest on July 10 heard that they group stayed up smoking cannabis joints until 8am but after the two men had left Miss Root-Reed suddenly got up.

Mr McCormack said: "I thought she was going to the toilet. The longer it went the more worried I got."

Hours later Miss Root-Reed's body was pulled from the sea. She had large stones in her body-warmer pockets.

Pathologist Dr Christopher Mason told the inquest that although the amount of ecstasy she had taken was high it was not the cause of her death.

He added: "I think she drowned before a physiological deterioration took place.

"It is quite likely that the level she had in her made her decision-making not normal. I feel that at that level any action she may have taken would have been influenced by drugs."

The inquest also heard that Miss Root-Reed had previously slashed her wrists and neck and had suffered serious injuries after falling from a five-metre wall in France in an apparent suicide bid.

Her mother Pamela Root-Reed said: "I felt she was crying out for help but if I tried to give her advice on her substance abuse she wouldn't listen."

East Sussex coroner Alan Craze warned of the dangers of ecstasy and added: "I want to take this opportunity to send a message to people taking ecstasy on a recreational basis that it is a dangerous drug."

A verdict of misadventure was recorded.