The police, lost evidence and a search for the truth.
The Story
The Times
3.9 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 15 December 2025
⏱️ 36 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
19-year-old Edward Cornes was found dead in a hotel room, just two days after he arrived at university. A post-mortem found large amounts of GHB, commonly known as the ‘date-rape’ drug in his system. Cornes had spent his final few hours in the company of two men in their fifties, but police concluded his death was not suspicious. His mother has accused the police of running a botched and homophobic investigation. So what went wrong?
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Guests:
- Miriam Blythe, mother of Edward Cornes
- Fiona Hamilton, chief reporter, The Times
Host: Luke Jones.
Producer: Shabnam Grewal.
Read more: Family fight for truth over son’s ‘date-rape’ drug death
Photo: Courtesy of Miriam Blythe.
Get in touch: thestory@thetimes.com
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | From The Times and the Sunday Times, this is the story. I'm Luke Jones. |
| 0:10.6 | When I first started investigating, I thought what a tragic, sad case it was. |
| 0:25.1 | Yeah. I thought what a tragic, sad case it was. Fiona Hamilton is chief reporter at the Times. |
| 0:27.6 | She's been reporting on the case of Edward Corns, |
| 0:30.5 | who died in 2021 at the age of just 19. |
| 0:34.2 | And then as I saw more of the missed opportunities |
| 0:36.4 | and the assumptions that were made about Edward, |
| 0:39.5 | I just thought it was truly shocking. |
| 0:41.4 | I mean, one of the worst cases I've examined. |
| 0:59.5 | Edward died with a large amount of GHB, sometimes uses a date rape drug in his system. |
| 1:04.6 | The police say his death was properly investigated, but they've been accused of a botched and homophobic approach. Edward's mum thinks they were more interested in smearing her son |
| 1:10.3 | than finding out why he died. |
| 1:12.9 | I mean, I still do not, after four years, |
| 1:16.1 | and probably like a hundred police people |
| 1:19.4 | and other people involved with it, |
| 1:21.5 | know what happened to my son. |
| 1:39.2 | Thank you. Both Miriam and our own Fiona Hamilton will tell us what has happened. |
| 1:44.2 | The story today, the police, lost evidence and my fight for the truth. |
| 1:59.6 | Miriam Blythe is Edward's mother. She came to our studio to tell me about her son and what he was like. |
| 2:05.2 | So, yeah, tell me about Edwards as a kid. What was he like? Was he a happy child? |
| 2:13.3 | He was an obviously gay child. So he liked to dressing fairy clothes. His friend Lottie, |
| 2:17.3 | who was one of his childhood friends, came. She bought me flowers yesterday. And she said, do you remember we always used to argue about the fairy dresses? |
... |
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