PARENTS of tragic teenager Nikki Hollis have called on party hat manufacturers to stop their evil trade.
The 18-year-old died in Ibiza after a three-day binge in which she wore the cardboard-and-elastic celebration millinery sweeping the club scene, and which is still completely legal.
Nikkis parents, lovingly cradling a photo of their daughter doing a tray of tequila slammers on her 16th birthday, said: “She was always a bundle of fun and the life and soul of any of the 300-odd parties a year she used to go to.
“She was the first onto the dance floor, sometimes several hours before the venue had even opened, and shed often be so excited shed have to pop to the loo two dozen times a night. But when she started wearing that hat, everything changed.”
The brightly-coloured conical headwear comes in packs of five in many high street shops and can be bought for as little as a couple of pounds. In one Carlisle store, the shopkeeper confessed to selling them to children as young as 10.
Margaret Hollis said “Whenever Nikki put the hat on, usually at about three in the morning, shed become a completely different person. Shed slur her words, stagger all about the place and hardly be able to hold her bifter without falling over.
“I want to know why, during the last 72 hours of her life she spent in a bar snorting vodka, nobody tried to take that damned hat off her head? Somebodys to blame for our daughters death and we want some answers.”
Party favour manufacturer Joytimes Ltd were unavailable for comment but their website states: “We ask all customers to use balloons, hats and those razzy things you blow into responsibly.”
