Has Barrymore’s bid to salvage his reputation blown up in his face?
The screams coming from behind the electronic gates of Michael Barrymore’s sprawling bungalow, it was reported at the time, could be heard all the way down the cul-de-sac.
A man, we now know, had just been discovered face down in the swimming pool after a drugs-fuelled party hosted by Barrymore at his home in the village of Roydon, essex.
In the panic-stricken aftermath, fellow guests hauled the 31-year-old’s lifeless body out of the water and tried to resuscitate him, banging on his chest and administering the kiss of life in a desperate bid to revive him.
Missing from this poolside scene in the early hours of March 31, 2001, was the host. By the time police and paramedics arrived, Michael Barrymore — then among the highest-paid entertainers on British television — was nowhere to be seen. he’d already left the vicinity.
Post mortem tests could not ascertain whether Stuart Lubbock had died from drowning, heart failure or from the ecstasy, cocaine and alcohol in his bloodstream. One fact was not in dispute, though: Mr Lubbock had suffered severe internal injuries.
During the subsequent inquest, Barrymore, now 65, invoked Rule 22 of the Coroner’s Court that says ‘no witness shall be obliged to answer any question tending to incriminate himself’.
Pressed by the Lubbock family’s solicitor, he eventually denied allegations from two other party guests that he had rubbed cocaine onto an unwilling Mr Lubbock’s gums.
Why, the coroner asked, had he left the house? ‘It wasn’t the right thing to do,’ Barrymore said. ‘I was panicking.’
The coroner recorded an open verdict into the tragedy.
In 2007, however, following a ‘re-investigation’ of the case — the police’s terminology — there was a sensational development. Barrymore and two other men who were present when Stuart Lubbock died were arrested on suspicion of raping and murdering him. Ultimately, they did not face any charges.
Barrymore, who fronted hugely popular TV shows such as Strike It Lucky and My Kind Of People in the eighties and Nineties, has always maintained his innocence and has expressed deep regret for leaving the scene.
Those are the brief facts about that now infamous night at Michael Barrymore’s home and the death of Stuart Lubbock, which is still being treated as an unsolved murder.
But cut to a hearing at the high Court last week and you will have heard that Mr Lubbock was not the only ‘victim’ of events of that night.
FOR there was apparently another casualty: Michael Barrymore himself. The same Michael Barrymore who disappeared before the flashing blue lights arrived. The same Michael Barrymore who, when asked in a magazine interview (with Piers Morgan in 2006) if others were hiding secrets about what happened to Mr Lubbock, replied: ‘Yes. But I am not going to say their names. I just hope they are brave enough to come forward one day.’
Instead of ‘naming names’, Barrymore is now seeking ‘aggravated and exemplary damages’ in excess of £2.4 million from essex Police for ‘wrongful arrest and detention’ causing him to suffer ‘loss’ (of earnings), as well as ‘distress, shock, anxiety’ and harm to his ‘reputation’, which effectively ended his glittering showbiz career.
Taxpayers could end up picking up the bill for the legal costs — estimated to be more than £1 million.
Whatever the outcome, the irony is that, 16 years on, Barrymore’s attempt to restore something of his reputation — and secure a huge payout — has had precisely the opposite effect.
his name has been dragged through the mud again, with shocking new allegations emerging during the four-day hearing about the dreadful night itself, the police investigation and Barrymore’s private life.
At least five reasons were given in court (based, said Barrymore’s QC, on evidence which is either false or wholly unreliable) to show there were ‘reasonable grounds’ to arrest Barrymore.
The first reason came from a retired detective who worked on the investigation. She told the hearing that a new witness had come forward claiming Barrymore had been ‘pressurising’ Mr Lubbock for sex, but was told he was straight. The witness, in her view, was credible, she said.
Barrymore’s predatory behaviour towards Mr Lubbock, recently separated from the mother of his two young daughters, had resulted, she said, in a fracas between Barrymore and his then partner (a one-time drag queen named Jonathan Kenney) over it.
‘how does that support the suspicion that Mr Barrymore was guilty of rape and murder?’ Barrymore’s barrister asked her.
The former detective, with 27 years experience behind her in essex Police, replied: ‘The pressurising for sex shows it, and that Mr Barrymore was interested in a sexual encounter.’
Let’s revisit that night for a moment. Mr Lubbock first met Barrymore at the Millennium Club in harlow earlier that evening. he was one of seven people at the venue, all strangers, who were invited to the party at the star’s house.
everyone who knew Stuart Lubbock — a supervisor at a meat factory — insisted he was avowedly heterosexual, and that he’d accepted Barrymore’s invitation out of simple starstruck excitement at the chance to visit a celebrity’s home.
The second reason to arrest Barrymore emanated from a police intelligence report which contained details of a tip-off alleging that Kenney (Barrymore’s lover) rang Barrymore’s personal assistant on the morning of Mr Lubbock’s death.
‘he (the assistant) was told to clear up the house, and the police were called after this was done,’ said John Beggs QC, representing essex Police.
The personal assistant had ‘untrammelled’ access to the house and was ‘coming and going throughout the day’, the police log states. During this time, a pool thermometer which could have been used to assault Mr Lubbock ‘went missing’, Mr Beggs revealed. The device was the right size to have caused the injuries to Mr Lubbock, the hearing was told.
Barrymore, Mr Beggs told the court, was seen rummaging through drawers shortly after Mr Lubbock was found dead, and was then ‘observed carrying something under his arm. his counsel says he was just carrying a jumper. The simple position is the police never discovered, they cannot know, what he removed,’ said Mr Beggs.
Mr Beggs told the hearing that Barrymore was suspected of bribing two witnesses not to give evidence against him after Mr Lubbock’s death. This is the third reason that led police to believe they had good grounds to arrest the TV star.
AgAIN, this information came from an anonymous tip-off. But Mr Beggs drew parallels with the investigation into the death of black teenager Stephen Lawrence, when officers were criticised for ‘not acting or taking account of unsourced information coming in anonymously in the form of calls’.
The fourth reason: Barrymore’s previous ‘bad character’, Mr Beggs told the court, involved allegations of ‘nonconsensual sexual activity, including rape of males and females’. Some of these allegations received press coverage at the time.
The News Of The World is believed to have later paid Barrymore ‘substantial damages’ over an ‘exclusive’, because they accepted the accusation of male rape in 1998 was false.
But one incident, also in 1998, was ‘distinctly relevant’, Mr Beggs told the court. he described an alleged encounter which involved ‘rough sexual relations with a female’.
he claimed Barrymore paid another man to have sex with a prostitute in a London hotel room. The court was told that CCTV shows Barrymore going into the room but leaving almost immediately. The prostitute later made a complaint to the police. Barrymore was questioned but not charged.
Finally, like the coroner before him, Mr Beggs QC highlighted perhaps the single most troubling aspect of all: the fact that Barrymore left the scene.
‘If you ask the man on the Clapham Omnibus if someone at your party had died, how many would say they would leave the scene?’ he asked.
The barrister then offered a fresh explanation for Barrymore’s ‘suspicious’ behaviour: ‘The claimant bought himself
two hours thinking time before he was questioned by the police.’
Barrymore, wearing a dapper blue suit, was in court every day. No witnesses were called by his barrister, Hugh Tomlinson QC, and Barrymore did not give evidence.
Barrymore’s case against Essex Police amounts to little more than ruthlessly exploiting a procedural mistake. This mistake occurred because the detective who was meant to arrest Barrymore got stuck in traffic, so another officer who was not involved in the inquiry and had not been adequately briefed was sent to Barrymore’s address instead.
Under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE), this was technically ‘unlawful’ as the arresting officer did not personally have reasonable grounds to make the arrest. The clause is meant to be a safeguard to ensure the power of arrest cannot be used arbitrarily by individual officers.
The Essex force argued that the former TV host (trademark catchphrase ‘Alwight’) should only receive nominal damages of £1 because there were ‘ample grounds’ for ‘reasonable suspicion’. Clearly, Barrymore and his legal team disagree.
Moreover, Barrymore’s career ended shortly after 5.45 am on March 31, 2001, when Stuart Lubbock was found dead in his swimming pool, not six years later with his arrest — ‘unlawful’ or otherwise. His £2million contract with ITV was not renewed after Mr Lubbock’s death and Barrymore has barely worked since.
Even before then, his compulsive pleasure-seeking, usually with young men, and his increasing dependency on alcohol and drugs had tarnished his image as a family entertainer and cost him his 21-year marriage to his late wife, Cheryl, who was also his manager.
At one point, he was doing odd jobs in a garden centre and a garage — unpaid work to help friends. He was declared bankrupt in 2004 over an unpaid tax bill.
For most of the past decade, he has lived in an apartment in a gated block in Acton, West London, which he bought for £350,000. He is a familiar face at the greasy spoon cafe down the road.
‘Michael has been coming in for a full English and a cup of tea every couple of weeks for years,’ says the owner.
Today, Barrymore has his own PR again (one who once acted for Princess Diana’s former lover, James Hewitt) and is said to be making a new sitcom with Game Of Thrones actor Tom Brooke.
Barrymore was spotted in a photo tweeted by the production company recently. The image was captioned: ‘Great shoot today with two very talented actors.’
Mr Lubbock’s father Terry believes Barrymore may have launched his High Court action to pave the way for a possible ‘return’. ‘In Barrymore’s mind, this could be the start of a comeback,’ said Terry, 71, who now lives in a care home. ‘He must be mad.’
Terry was reported to have shaken hands with Barrymore outside court last week, but there has been no rapprochement.
‘I wouldn’t shake his hand,’ Terry said. ‘I talked to him because I didn’t want to be rude. But as long as I am alive, I will keep fighting for the truth. I have had four strokes but I won’t stop. Where did those injuries come from? Stuart didn’t inflict them on himself.
‘Essex Police have said they want to give him £1. I think that’s too much. It should be about 50p.’ At the High Court, Hugh Tomlinson, QC for Barrymore, said the police had a ‘tunnel vision’ mindset about Michael Barrymore’s interest in sexual encounters that ‘coloured’ their investigation into him.
He said police had not treated the three women or two other men who were at the party as suspects —- proof that it was possible ‘to be there, be innocent and be honest’.
‘A reasonable police officer who entertained the suspicion that the claimant [Barrymore] had committed murder would have concluded there was insufficient material to arrest him,’ Mr Tomlinson said.
We shall find out shortly whether the judge agrees with him.