Lost Paradise reveller planned to share 80 MDMA pills with friends

A young man who brought 80 MDMA pills into a music festival where a reveller died claims he and three mates planned to take at least five of the tablets each per day.

A young man who brought 80 MDMA pills into a music festival where a reveller died claims he and three mates planned to take at least five of the tablets each per day.

Mark William Burns fronted Downing Centre Local Court today after last week pleading guilty to supplying drugs at the Lost Paradise dance party at Glenworth Valley on December 29.

Mark William Burns. Picture: Monique Harmer.

The 23-year-old Elanora Heights man was stopped by police at the security checking point at 9.30am on the first morning of the festival, hours before 22-year-old Brisbane rugby player Joshua Tam fatally overdosed.

Burns has also admitted to possessing nearly 6.5 grams of cocaine but says it was all for personal use and he never intended to sell it for profit.

“He was simply taking those pills in for his use and three of his friends,” his barrister William Barber said outside court.

Lost Paradise Festival 2018 at Glenworth Valley

That would mean the four mates planned to take a total of 20 MDMA pills and a bag and a half of cocaine each over the festival which sells three or four day tickets.

Mr Barber urged other party goers to act responsibly as three more notorious festivals loom this Australia Day long weekend with temperatures due to soar.

“They should be extremely careful, not only of what they take with them, but what they take themselves,” he said.

“We’ve seen the terrible carnage among young people that these illicit drugs with unknown materials inside them have caused.”

The state government is providing more medics at Electric Gardens in Centennial Park as well as the Rolling Loud and Hardcore til I Die events at Sydney Olympic Park to increase the safety of patrons.

Mark William Burns (left) today at court. Picture: Monique Harmer.

Mr Tam — who collapsed about 6pm on December 29 — is one of five young people to die at NSW raves in as many months from suspected overdoses in what will be the subject of an inquest.

A directions hearing this week revealed one young man died after taking between six and nine MDMA pills in one day.

A psychological report will be ordered Burns before he is sentenced on February 21.

There is no suggestion Burns supplied the drugs which lead to Mr Tam’s death or that his case is linked to the inquest.