Barrymore pool death WAS murder, says detective hunting killer
Inside the TV entertainer’s mansion after THAT party
THE man who died at Michael Barrymore’s home 19 years ago was raped and murdered, claims the detective leading a fresh investigation into the tragedy.
Stuart Lubbock, 31, was found dead in a swimming pool after a drug-fuelled party at the star’s £2million Essex mansion in 2001, but no criminal charges have ever been brought due to ‘insufficient evidence’.
Now Essex Police are launching a new appeal to key witnesses in a drive to solve the mystery of what happened that night. It coincides with an explosive Channel 4 documentary about the death of the divorced father-of-two.
Former television presenter Barrymore, 67, has always denied any involvement in Mr Lubbock’s death. He was arrested in 2007 on suspicion of murder and serious sexual assault, but was never charged.
Barrymore was once ITV’s biggest star, earning £2million a year and famous for fronting heart-warming family shows such as My Kind Of People and the game show Strike It Lucky. But his stellar career collapsed after Mr Lubbock’s death, with just a few TV appearances since on reality shows, including Celebrity Big Brother.
Once known for his wild lifestyle of drink and drugs, the recovering alcoholic now lives modestly in a flat in west London. He had been hoping to revive his fortunes in ITV’s current Dancing On Ice series but had to pull out when he broke a wrist during rehearsals.
Detective Chief Inspector Stephen Jennings, who is leading the case, told Channel 4: ‘I believe very much that Stuart Lubbock was raped and murdered that night. Somebody at that party knows what happened. The key to bringing people to justice definitely sits with the eight people who were there.’
A post-mortem examination revealed that the victim, from Harlow, Essex, had suffered severe internal injuries consistent with rape. The cause of death was never established and the coroner recorded an open verdict following four conflicting pathologist reports.
After Mr Lubbock’s body was found in the pool, Barrymore fled the house.
Mr Jennings admitted that police failed to secure the scene for forensics tests at the time of the death on March 31, 2001, as they wrongly assumed he had drowned after taking a cocktail of drink and drugs.
He also said a handle from an outhouse and a pool thermometer had gone missing. When asked what he thought happened to them, he replied: ‘They’ve been removed to hide evidence. Stuart was assaulted, quite possibly in the Jacuzzi, and then either died in the Jacuzzi or went unconscious, and then, to make it look like a drowning, was thrown in the swimming pool.’
In the documentary to be screened on Thursday, one of the pathologists said he believed that Mr Lubbock’s injuries were consistent with rape. Professor Jack Crane said: ‘This young man had suffered a very vile, a very serious sexual assault. Here we have Stuart, with both MDMA and cocaine in his blood stream, and then the sudden assault. That combination could very easily have caused him to have a sudden cardiac arrest.’
He added: ‘We have the death of a young man which, in my view, is not clear-cut. The injuries suffered were very severe and I do not believe they were the result of a consensual sexual act.’
Mr Jennings said a full review of the case will now take place: ‘We did make mistakes early on in terms of the crime scene, because a lot of the witnesses were saying that they thought it was a drowning, a tragic accident. We probably believed it at that point. The scene was secured but not to the standard we would expect, hence the reason that people were allowed back in there and we know items have now gone missing.’
Yesterday the victim’s father, Terry Lubbock, said trying to solve the mystery of his son’s death had ‘consumed’ his life. He told the documentary: ‘This thing is so big that it smothered everything that was good about my son Stuart. I feel exhausted, but it is still in me to carry on. How can a father dismiss the questions that have got to be answered about my son’s murder?’
The documentary will also feature the 999 call made from Barrymore’s home by Justin Merritt, a bin man who was at the party that took place after an evening at a club. He can be heard saying in a panic: ‘A fella has drowned in the pool. We have got him out. There’s a party going on and someone has just gone out and found him. I think the geezer’s dead, mate.’
Last year Barrymore spoke about the death of Mr Lubbock on Piers Morgan’s ITV show Life Stories, saying that he ‘couldn’t be more sorry’ for his behaviour that night, adding that he was ‘100 per cent innocent’.
‘The injuries suffered were very severe’