A YOUNG man has admitted supplying a Class A drug to York teenager Poppy Rodgers in the hours before her death and is facing jail.

Luke Carey, 24, was aware the 4-methylamphetamine he supplied to 16-year-old Poppy had been involved with the death of a 22-year-old man a year earlier, but “wasn’t concerned”, a prosecution witness told police.Carey’s defence team have yet to say whether or not he accepts their evidence. He will be sentenced on August 7.

The Recorder of York, Judge Stephen Ashurst warned him the court’s starting point would be a custodial sentence.

He said: “Where the supply of a drug has led to another person’s death, there are other important consequences which any responsible court must take into account.”

York College student Poppy collapsed at a house in Tang Hall Lane on April 19, 2012, after taking the drug. She died shortly after midnight at York Hospital.

A 21-year-old man also collapsed at the same house but survived.

Carey, of Waterings, Wigginton, cried in the dock of York Crown Court as he pleaded guilty to supplying Poppy and another person with the drug and offering to supply the same drug to Poppy, a second woman and a second man.

He was released on bail while a probation officer prepares a report on him. He has no previous convictions.

Nick Worsley, prosecuting, said the second man had told Carey the drug was the same as that which John Causer, 22, of Middleton Road, Acomb, had taken before he collapsed and died in 2011 and that it should not be taken.

“Luke Carey wasn’t concerned,” Mr Worsley quoted from the second man’s police statement.

In her police statement, the second woman said Carey had told her he had got the drug cheaply from someone who had “buried it for a year” after it had been blamed for another death.

4-methylamphetamine is a illegal “designer drug” which acts as a stimulant and can suppress appetite. A few weeks after Poppy’s death, North Yorkshire Police warned the public not to use it, saying it had been linked to deaths elsewhere in the UK.

• Mr Causer was 22 when he died in May 2011. When York coroner Donald Coverdale opened his inquest, he said Mr Causer had said he had taken MDMA or Ecstasy, a form of methyamphetamine, shortly before his death. Mr Causer had spent much of the night before his death drinking and was seen taking cocaine or another drug. Hours later, he collapsed at a house in Burdyke Avenue, Clifton and died.