It's a hell of a story, all told, and not much known about despite being reported in the press. Doherty's direct involvement falls into the "not proven" bracket - if his past history of inspiring instant infatuation in every judge and cop he meets is anything to go by, it'll probably stay that way. (On Edit, he might just be a police informant rather than anything particularly spooky)
Video of the death at link (not a lot to see, really - the man can be seen falling at the top right of the screen, right at the start, then Doherty and friends appear)
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/793 ... ery-death-
Doherty is then seen fleeing with his companion Kate Russell-Pavier, and his minder, Johnny Headlock, covering his face just a few yards behind. An ambulance had yet to arrive.
Minutes before that, Cambridge philosophy graduate Mark, 30, had been persistently “bugging” Doherty at an east London party.
The top right of the video clearly shows him fall from the window
Despite a murder confession from one of the people involved—later retracted—an initial police investigation found no suspicious circumstances.
Detectives believed Mark had either committed suicide or fallen while trying to jump on to a lamppost.
A coroner ruled out both theories at an inquest in October 2007, and ordered the Metropolitan Police to re-open their investigation.
Fifteen months later, the Sunday Express can reveal that the second probe is set to report back inconclusive, leaving a series of questions about the singer’s role still unanswered.
Although homicide detectives have yet to officially confirm their decision, they have indicated to Mark’s mother, Sheila, that the death of her talented and popular son remains a mystery.
College lecturer Mrs Blanco, who held Mark’s hand as he died in hospital 24 hours after the fall in December 2006, has conducted her own one-woman investigation, interviewing dozens of her son’s friends and witnesses.
Her barrister, Michael Wolkind QC, said last night: “One man assaulted him, another confessed to killing him and Doherty behaved in a callous way towards him, yet not one of them have ever been arrested or interviewed as a suspect.
“We are left with a mother who will never give up. At the very least there should be another full inquest.”
The harrowing CCTV footage not only shows Mark’s fall, but also Doherty, 29, and Russell-Pavier, a family friend of world famous investigative journalist, John Pilger, later running past his dying body.
Mark’s friends are questioning about other strange aspects of the singer’s behaviour in the aftermath of the tragedy.
They want to know why he returned to the death scene four months after the incident to record a video for his new single, “The Lost Art of Murder”.
The title was a direct reference to the 1827 essay “On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts” by Thomas De Quincey, an author Doherty’s friends knew Mark was obsessed with.
Doherty is reported as saying on the video: “I just thought I’d pop in to Paulo’s, a much-maligned figure, justifiably I suppose.
“But on the whole, if drugs and suspicious deaths don’t get in the way, this place is quite creative for me.”
Mark’s family is also convinced the police did not place enough significance on the plot of the play he was due to perform in, Dario Fo’s The Accidental Death of an Anarchist.
Mark was to play a character investigating the death of a political activist who had fallen from a police station window.
He had specifically gone to the party to persuade Doherty to attend the opening night at the nearby George Tavern pub in Stepney a few days later.
The party was held in December 2006 at a notorious east London crack-house rented by Doherty’s “literary agent”, Paul Roundhill.
The CCTV footage, which was played at the inquest, shows Mark entering the communal door of the three-storey mansion block at 13 minutes past midnight on December 3.
Three other guests and Roundhill were already in the top floor flat.
They were textile designer Annabel Healdsmith, Naomi Stirk and Doherty’s violent minder Johnny Jeannevol, widely known as Johnny Headlock.
Two minutes after Mark’s entrance, Doherty, at that time going out with Kate Moss, arrived hand-in-hand with Russell-Pavier, who was celebrating her 19th birthday.
For the next 10 minutes, Mark pestered Doherty about his play, so much so that the Babyshambles frontman ordered Headlock “to have a word with him”.
Roundhill set fire to Mark’s to try and distract him away, but when that failed he resorted to violence.
He claimed to punch him three times in the face and push him out of the flat, although whether he did this alone is debated: Roundhill is described as “puny”, while Mark was 6ft 4ins.
The video then shows Mark, ejected, leaving the block at 12.25am, but for some reason returning two minutes later when he is seen peering up at the balcony from the street before waiting a couple of seconds by the communal door then re-entering the mansion block.
Some 67 seconds later an almost lifeless body plunges from the first floor balcony on the communal stairwell.
He is seen smashing onto the side of a parked car before rebounding onto the pavement.
It is not clear whether he fell head or feet first, but the trajectory suggests he either jumped or was thrown or pushed.
Because he does not appear to make any attempt to break his fall, his friends believe he was already unconscious.
The thud of Mark hitting the pavement at 12.29am was heard by Lukman Hussain, 21, in the block’s basement flat.
He said: “Before that I could hear constant noise of people going up and down the communal stairs. I was scared to go out, I thought he’d been beaten up.”
It is then 12 minutes before the next person appears on the tape. According to her own testimony at the inquest in October 2007, that is likely to have been Annabel Healdsmith.
The CCTV shows her starting to leave, seeing Mark’s body, then disappearing inside again.
Two minutes later, she returns with another person, thought to be Naomi, and they crouch down placing tissues around Mark’s bleeding skull.
During the next three minutes, more people come downstairs, then a full 22 minutes after Mark’s fall, Doherty, Russell-Pavier and Headlock flee.
An ambulance, called by Roundhill at 12.45am, arrived six minutes after Doherty left.
What happened in the 67 seconds between Mark’s return and his fall remains unexplained.
Coroner Dr Andrew Reid, who recorded an open verdict, “unreservedly” ruled out suicide and said the lamppost theory was mere “speculation”.
Mark’s friends believe he was assaulted, then hurled from the balcony.
Neither have the 12 minutes between his fall and the first person appearing on the scene been satisfactorily explained, even during an inquest in which both Roundhill and Headlock admitted lying in statements to police and emergency services.
At that hearing, the coroner also heard suggestions that Russell-Pavier, who like Doherty was not called to give evidence, had become “hysterical” in that period.
It was said she needed calming down, while Headlock, who had drugs in his pocket, decided that he, the 19-year-old, and Doherty should flee.
It also emerged at the inquest that three weeks after Mark’s death, Headlock had walked into Bethnal Green police station on Christmas Eve and confessed to killing Mark.
He demanded to see investigating officer Detective Inspector Mark Dunne, but his confession, later retracted, was dismissed as the ramblings of a drug user and not followed up.
Two years later, the central characters in the tragedy remain tight-lipped.
Roundhill said his memories of Mark’s death were “too painful” to talk about, but hinted that the budding actor had been trying to make a creative statement by jumping.
“Mark told me that he had come from three generations of anarchists and I think that had something to do with it,” he told the Sunday Express.
Nick Russell-Pavier, Kate’s father and a long time collaborator on John Pilger documentaries, said his daughter would not be commenting.
He also declined to say whether he had spoken to her about the incident himself.
Neither Headlock nor Doherty could be contacted for comment.
A Met Police spokeswoman said: “The specialist crime review group has concluded its report and made a number of recommendations. We anticipate finalising the review and reporting to the coroner in the near future.”
This is interesting, too:
http://www.wilsdon.co.uk/10/12/2006/did ... rk-blanko/"The theft of Mark’s watch, cufflinks and
glasses(????) is utterly unforgiveable, as is the subsequent behaviour of Doherty et al. It is beyond my comprehension that an innocent person could leave a scene as tragic as that before the emergency services had arrived."
What has to borne in mind (I think) with the likes of Doherty and Amy Winehouse's guy, Blake Fielder-Civil, is that they may be crackheads and
all that, but they are the sons of privillege, and they're still protected.
But Doherty's protection is way beyond the norm - for a while there he could literally get away with
anything. Like one of the Golden Youth from the old Soviet Union or something.
Comedian Jerry Sadowitz, a friend of Mr Blanco for ten years, said: "I don't think he had taken full account of the people who were at the party, who included drug addicts.
"I think they had taken a dislike to the fact that he was middle-class and well-spoken and they started teasing him."
Jerry Sadowitz is great, but he's wrong here. They were
all middle-class (or upper-middle) and well spoken. Just because Doherty and pals act poor doesn't mean they are.
The Lost art Of Murder - Pete Doherty
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=7VXN9TNnu ... re=relatedThought I should also mention Carl Barat, Pete's old bandmate in The Libertines, if only for this gem:
As a youth, Barât divided his time between his divorced parents. His father worked in an armaments factory, and his mother, Chrissie, was part of the commune-dwelling counterculture and peace groups such as the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Bar%C3%A2tA house divided against itself cannot stand! [/quote]
I had no idea. What's the story on that?
