Party girl, 16, killed by half litre of vodka

A coroner highlighted the perils of binge drinking after hearing how a 16-year-old straight-A student drank herself to death at a house-warming party.

Rhona Tavener, of Caversham Park Village, near Reading, was more than five times over the drink-drive limit when her heart stopped. She had drunk up to half a litre of vodka at the party in Cookham, Berkshire on 30 January.

Friends performed CPR after she stopped breathing. She never regained consciousness and arrived at hospital brain dead. She had 450mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood in her system.

Recording a verdict of accidental death, Berkshire coroner Peter Bedford told Rhona's friends at the inquest yesterday: "Alcohol is a poison. If you drink enough of it, it will kill you."

Tracie Tavener said her daughter, who was at Henley College, did not regularly drink: "She talked of her friends who got drunk and said how daft they were."