An unemployed factory worker died after taking a colossal amount of the drug ecstasy.

Peter Bull, 27, consumed more than six times the potentially-fatal dose of the Class A drug, an inquest heard.

Mr Bull died at a friend's flat in the early hours of Saturday, September 28, last year.

He had consumed 6.7mg of the drug per litre of blood, when just 1mg per litre has been known to kill.

The Hastings inquest yesterday heard his friends did not know he had taken ecstasy before he died in Chapel Park Road, St Leonards.

Friends said he had a long-standing drink problem but apart from an occasional cannabis joint and amphetamine he never dabbled with drugs.

When single Mr Bull, of Sedlescombe Road North, St Leonards, arrived at the flat the evening before his death, they suspected he had been drinking.

As the evening progressed, the six friends listened to music, drank and some smoked cannabis.

In a statement, friend Emily Howe said she went to bed at 10.30pm but came downstairs at 1am to find Mr Bull and her boyfriend Darren Biddles still up.

She asked them to lower the music before she returned to bed.

Mr Biddles and Mr Bull fell asleep on the sofa. But later, Mr Biddles woke to see his friend blue in the face and "not looking right".

Miss Howe was woken at 3.30am by Mr Biddles who was screaming "I can't wake him" and "He's not breathing".

She said: "I could see he was blue. I tried to feel for a pulse but couldn't find one. I went to my friend Caroline's house for help."

When she came back, paramedics were working to resuscitate Mr Bull but failed and he was pronounced dead at the scene.

A post-mortem examination showed he was twice the legal drink-drive limit. But pathologist Dr Stuart Barnes said it was the huge amount of MDMA (ecstasy) that killed him.

When exactly Mr Bull took the drug was not known, nor the amount, but East Sussex coroner Alan Craze said he suspected none of his friends knew he had taken them.

He recorded a verdict of death by non-dependent use of on drugs.

Latest figures show there were 27 ecstasy-related deaths in England and Wales in 2000, compared with 17 the year before.

A spokesman for drug treatment agency Addaction, which has sites in Brighton and Hove, Worthing and Hastings, said last night: "Ecstasy is a Class A drug and should be because it puts people at particular risk, especially young people because of the dehydration it causes."