THE friends of tragic Gareth Noone made a pact to get him off drugs just 24 hours before he died.

His mates - all students - told an inquest how they had started smoking cannabis before some of them moved on to harder drugs.

Matthew Hart, 18, of Hacking Close, Langho, said he had first become involved in drugs at the age of 12 or 13. He told the Blackburn hearing: "I first started smoking cannabis. It made me relax. At about 14 or 15 I started using amphetamines.

"On the night Gareth died, he had taken about 15 Temazepam tablets he had bought from Sebastian. He would usually pay money to Sebastian up-front or give him a watch or jumper as payment until he could get the cash."

He said Sebastian Burkhadt had shown no remorse when told Gareth had died in his bed.

Mr Hart said: "Sebastian asked me not to tell anyone that he'd been selling drugs. He said 'Don't be saying I've been selling Temazepam or given him smack'. It was the first thing he said.

"We had all said we would try and get Gareth off the stuff and then he died."

He said Mr Burkhadt had tried to encourage him to travel into Blackburn to buy heroin but he had always refused.

Yolande Pendlebury, whose flat had been used by the circle of friends for cannabis smoking sessions, said in a statement to police that she was the girlfriend of Mr Burkhadt.

She said Mr Burkhadt's addiction to heroin had left him in such a bad state that he had no veins left in his body that he could inject into.

She said Gareth had become "in awe" of Mr Burkhadt and thought he was "cool."

Her brother Hugo, who shared the flat, arrived at the inquest after taking his final A-level examination. He admitted being a cannabis user and said on the night of Gareth's death they had been smoking after playing a game of Streetfighter on a Nintendo machine.

Marrick Walsh, who was a lifelong friend of Gareth and did not say if he had ever used any substances himself, said: "Gareth used drugs as a form of escapism. He was having a lot of problems at school. He once told me he thought Sebastian was evil and he wished he could stop seeing him."

Phil Rushton, of Queen's Road, Accrington, told police that he, Gareth and Matthew had bought amphetamines at The Swan pub in Blackburn. He said: "Gareth started using cannabis and I think after that he just wanted to experiment with other things."

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