Tribute: Drugs warning from devastated mum of 'beautiful and bright' Halifax A-level student who died after taking MDMA at sleepover

Lila-Grace Smith’s heartbroken mum is now urging other young people to heed her drugs warning after losing the 17-year-old, who was her “best friend as well as her daughter”.

"She was confident, kind, intelligent, bubbly and fun,” said Emma Hargreaves

"She was just beautiful, inside and out. You couldn’t ask for her to be any more.”

Lila-Grace was studying A-levels in Biology, French and Psychology at North Halifax Grammar School where she had been a student since Year 7.

She enjoyed singing and playing piano, and loved spending time with her family and friends.

Emma said her beloved daughter was sleeping over at a friend’s house last June when she is understood to have fallen ill after taking the drug.

She was taken to hospital but tragically passed away after having a cardiac arrest.

Devastated Emma wants parents to warn their kids about the risk of taking drugs - and what to do if someone around them needs medical help.

"I think you can tell kids to not take drugs but they don't listen because they think they're invincible and that it won't happen to them,” she said,

"The most important thing is that if you are with your friends taking drugs, and one of them seems slightly off, you need to ring an ambulance or get help straight away.

"Obviously you want to tell them to not take drugs but they don't always listen."

She said she had spoken to Lila-Grace about the dangers of drugs and would likely have had another talk with her if the teen had been on her way to a festival or party.

It never entered her head that there would a drugs at a sleepover.

"Just talk to your children about it and how dangerous it is,” said Emma, of Keighley.

"Tell them that if they are with someone who has taken drugs and they are even slightly concerned about them, they need to ring an ambulance straight away.

"Instead of worrying about how they might get into trouble, they need to worry about how they might be saving a life."

Emma, who also has two sons, added she "never thought it would happen” to her daughter.

Some of Lila-Grace’s loved ones took part in a sponsored walk last weekend from her primary school in Keighley to North Halifax Grammar School last weekend to collect funds for two memorial benches.

Emma said: “It was nice for everyone who loved her to get together to do something meaningful.”

Among them was Lila-Grace’s boyfriend, Harry Hardaker. His mum Debbie Blenkarn said the pair had been together for two years and were “just inseparable”.

“She was part of our family,” she added.

"She was such a bubbly, caring and clever girl. She was always smiling.”

To donate to the online fundraising page, which has so far raised more than £4,800 in Lila-Grace’s memory, visit https://www.gofundme.com/f/sponsored-walk-in-memory-of-lilagrace .