Brit, 20, who went missing after ‘psychotic breakdown’ found dead in ditch
A Brit who vanished in the Netherlands after suffering a ‘psychotic breakdown’ has been found dead in a ditch, local police said.
Thomas Delafay, 20, from Plymouth, was last seen on the evening of June 11 after a friend dropped him off at the Dijklander Hospital in Hoorn.
He had travelled to Holland with his boyfriend, Tom Novelle, to the city about 20 miles north of Amsterdam to visit the friend.
Over the next two days, Delafay reportedly experienced a drug-related psychosis, prompting his friend to drive him to the hospital, Delafay’s sister Holly said.
Grabbing Delafay’s personal possessions, the friend returned after dropping him off only for Delafay to have ‘left in an unknown direction’, police said.
But police confirmed on Saturday that a body recovered by the facility was that of Delafay, who also went by Taiga Akabane.
‘This morning we found a deceased person in a ditch on the Maelsonstraat in Hoorn. Investigation into the identity shows that it concerns the previously missing Thomas (Taiga),’ North Holland police said.
The force said investigators do not suspect foul play was involved and a cause of death has not yet been determined.
‘Our thoughts go out to the relatives,’ police added.
To his sister, Delafay was her ‘absolute world’ and ‘best friend’.
‘I write this with a broken heart and a crushed soul,’ Holly said on Facebook yesterday.
‘We will miss you so much, I don’t know what to do with my life now that you’re not it.
‘I feel so lost without my baby brother, you mean the absolute world to me and I’m so lost and broken without you.
‘You’re my best friend and I’m so broken without you I love you so so much, fly high and rest easy, baby bro.’
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has been approached for comment.
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