Backpacker’s family seek £20k for fake alcohol warnings

The family of a British backpacker who died after drinking poisonous counterfeit gin in Indonesia are trying to raise £20,000 to put warning posters about fake alcohol in doctors’ surgeries.

Cheznye Emmons, of Great Wakering, Essex, was 23 when she suffered sudden blindness and convulsions after drinking gin laced with methanol while on a six-month trip around Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia, and died five days later.

Brenton Emmons, her father, told the BBC that thousands of travellers had died after consuming illicit spirits in resorts and is trying to raise £20,000 to raise awareness of the dangers.

Soon after his daughter’s death, Emmons founded Save a Life Campaign and has so far printed 20,000 warning posters but needs money to distribute them in every doctor’s surgery in England.

“We’re putting the posters in surgeries because that’s where travellers go to get their inoculations,” he said.

“We want to reach them before they set out.”

Last month, figures showed that more than 50 Iranians died between March and September 2014 after drinking fake alcohol.