The parents of an 18-year-old ecstasy victim whose parents launched a high profile anti-drugs campaign have revealed her death "destroyed" their family.

Leah Betts died 20 years ago today after taking an Ecstasy tablet at a party.

Her parents allowed images of her life support machine in hospital in 1995 to be used in a campaign he led to highlight effect the tablets had had on their lives and stop other young people taking them.

Her father, Paul, a former police officer and Jan Betts, who were forced to leave their Essex home to escape drugs dealers for a new life in Scotland, will remember their daughter quietly with a drink to celebrate her life.

The parents took the heartbreaking decision to switch off the machine keeping her alive five days after she took the rogue tablet.

Mrs Betts, a former nurse, said: "Our fight against drugs came at a cost. It has destroyed our family. They live hundreds of miles away. The three girls at the time were setting up their careers, they had not got married or had children. We missed all that because we're up here.

"We have seven grandchildren now and we've missed all that too.

"The girls found it difficult to understand when I told them that if we had not moved dad would not be here today. Dad would have been gone. Dad would have been finished. Dead. That's why we moved to Scotland."

She added: "We do think about her all the time. But life must go on. Life does go on."

Mr Betts said: "We will have a dram in her honour, maybe two, but, as for sitting round moping, no. We've done our crying. We still miss her. We still think about her and you sort of watch things on the telly about a family and it rings bells."

Mr Betts' high profile war on drugs put him on a hit list by Essex drug barons.

He added: " We had to move to Scotland. They tried to take me out twice. I don't want to go into details. We'll just leave it at that. We had out house wired by the police because they had received information that we were going to be hit.

"What brought it home was that I knew who had supplied the drugs to Leah because being in the police service you make contacts, but when the information was passed on the answer was 'they're so far up the chain we will never be able to catch them'.

"So you catch all the little people but all the big ones are never caught with their dirty hands."

"So they get away with it.

Believing they had 'got away with it,' the ex-policeman decided to move on from the campaign after a decade.

The Betts' recently moved to Scoraig, an isolated windswept peninsula on the far north-west coast of Ross-shire. It has no shops, the post boat comes three times a week, weather permitting and the doctor has a surgery once a week - reached by a choppy one mile long boat ride across to the other side of Little Loch Broom.

Mr Betts added: " The next move is when they come to nail the lid down."

Their water comes from the sky, their light and power from the sun and the wind, their vegetables from their polytunnels. Meat comes in the form of wild rabbits snatched by Paul's hunting birds of prey, Shalgair, the Harris Hawk and Phoenix, the red tailed buzzard.

Leah was the youngest of Mr Betts' four daughters.

The Betts' search for a new and safer life took them to Craigellachie in Moray, Glen Moriston which runs West from the legendary Loch Ness and on to Scoraig way up on the West Coast.

The couple do seem to have found the safe haven.

Mr Betts added: "It's the nearest to heaven I will ever get. The big regret I have is that I did not discover Scotland 40 years ago. Things could have been so very different."