25/08/2003

Police probe 'unexplained death' at Reading Festival

Police are working with organisers of the Reading Festival and the coroner’s office to investigate an unexplained death on the festival site in the early hours of this morning.

Officers were called at 5.15am following reports that a man in the campsite area off Cow Lane appeared to have stopped breathing. The man’s friends continued to help him as police and on-site security and medical staff made their way to the area.

All emergency services were on the scene immediately and paramedics worked for almost an hour on the 18-year-old at the scene, before rushing him to the Royal Berkshire Hospital just before 6am.

The teenager was pronounced dead shortly afterwards by doctors at the hospital.

He has not been formally identified but is believed to be from the Leighton Buzzard area of Bedfordshire. His family are travelling to Reading today to carry out formal identification.

There are not thought to be any suspicious circumstances surrounding the death, however, as a matter of course CID and scenes of crime were called out.

However, until a post mortem examination has been carried out, police are unable to give a cause of death. It is not known at this time when this examination will take place.

(gmcg)

Related UK National News Stories
Click here for the latest headlines.

12 November 2014
Release Of Police Killer Described As 'Sickening'
The release of a man convicted of killing three unarmed police officers in 1966 has been described as "sickening". Harry Roberts, now aged 78, has been released from prison after serving 48 years for 1966 murders of three unarmed police officers in Shepherd's Bush in west London.
29 August 2014
Major Police Hunt Launched After Boy Taken From Hospital
A major police hunt has begun after a five-year-old boy with a brain tumour, was taken by his family without consent from Southampton General Hospital. Police said that Ashya King was taken from the hospital by Brett King, 51, and Naghemeh King, 45, on Thursday. It is thought he may have been taken to France.
07 May 2014
'Skull Cracker' In Custody In London
Kent Police, in partnership with officers from the Metropolitan Police Service, have arrested two men in East London on suspicion of conspiracy to commit armed robbery. On 3 May, Kent Police began a search for Michael Wheatley, 55, who had failed to return to HMP Standford Hill after being released on temporary licence.
11 June 2013
Riot Police Deployed As G8 Protesters Occupy Former Police Station
Some 100 riot police have been deployed in central London as protestors take to the streets to demonstrate ahead on the G8 summit being held in Northern Ireland next week. Officers were sent to Soho, where protesters are thought to have occupied a former police station on Beak Street.
07 February 2012
Great Expectations Of The MPU
Today is the 200th anniversary of the birth of renowned English novelist Charles Dickens (7 February 1812 - 9 June 1870), widely considered the greatest of the Victorian period. London as Dickens knew it, reached his pages, not from his imagination, but from his observations.