The grieving father of a Bangor teenager whose death is believed to be linked to mephedrone has described the decision to ban the drug as a “step in the right direction”.

Michael McKee’s son Jamie was found dead at a flat in the Gray’s Hill area of the seaside town at around 4am on Saturday.

It is understood the 17-year-old A-Level student took his own life.

While his devastated family is still awaiting the results of a post-mortem examination, his father last night said that they had “very little doubt” the drug contributed to his death.

Mr McKee said he welcomed the decision to make mephedrone and other cathinones illegal; however he believes more needs to be done to help addicts and their families deal with the effects of drug abuse.

“This is, without a doubt, a step in the right direction but it’s still such a problem. Obviously banning it is a starting point but there is a heck of a lot of work to be done out there to deal with the problem really.

”While this is a step in the right direction it’s not really going to do anything for Jamie. I suppose one thing is that this has brought a bit of attention to the issue. I said before the objective really for us is to try and get people to look at the facilities and the funding that is needed in order to tackle this very real problem.”