ONE was the camp £2million-a-year king of Saturday night TV, the 48-year-old housewives’ favourite who grinned as fans called out his Strike It Lucky catchphrase – “Top, middle or bottom!”. The other was a 31-year-old meat factory worker from Essex, a father of two and a total stranger to the celebrity lifestyle. But hours after […]
ONE was the camp £2million-a-year king of Saturday night TV, the 48-year-old housewives’ favourite who grinned as fans called out his Strike It Lucky catchphrase – “Top, middle or bottom!”.
The other was a 31-year-old meat factory worker from Essex, a father of two and a total stranger to the celebrity lifestyle.
But hours after the very different worlds of Michael Barrymore and Stuart Lubbock collided in a Harlow nightclub, the younger man lay dead at the bottom of the older man’s pool — and a huge showbiz career was on the brink of being torn to scandalous pieces.
What was initially dismissed as a tragic case of drowning has since been shrouded in mystery, with Stuart’s grieving father Terry firing off accusations over the years of murder, rape and cover-up.
Despite no criminal charges having been brought, the detective heading the inquiry has this week sensationally raised the possibility once more that what took place in the small hours of that night was murder — putting more pressure on Barrymore, now 67, and his seven party guests to reveal what they know.
Barrymore began that Friday night — March 30, 2001 — tucking into wine and shots of sambuca while sharing a curry with his boyfriend Jonathan Kenney. Stuart Lubbock was out on the town with his brother Kevin.
They met at the Millennium nightclub in Harlow, Essex. It was 1am and a bouncer had to guide a drunken Barrymore past autograph hunters.
When word spread of an after-party at the celebrity’s then home in nearby Roydon, Stuart managed to grab a seat in the cab. By 8.23am the next morning, he had been declared dead after being found lifeless in the swimming pool at the palatial bungalow.
The evidence of guests — many of whom did not know each other when the evening started — is full of unanswered questions and apparent inconsistencies.
By the time they got into the taxi for the 15-minute ride to Barrymore’s quiet cul-de-sac home at around 2.30am, Stuart had split from his brother and Barrymore had lost track of his partner.
With them were local dustman Justin Merritt and his then 19-year-old sister Kylie, who had also first met the TV star in the club.
Taxi driver Keith Herrett remembered a rowdy Barrymore blurting out: “I could do with a good f*** right now.”
Once past the electronic gates and inside, Barrymore opened a huge fridge-freezer in the kitchen to reveal a wide choice of booze.
Stuart, who had been drinking in town all evening, got stuck into the vodka, but Kylie told an inquest in 2002 that when she saw Barrymore offer him cocaine, he said no.
But she added: “I saw Barrymore put cocaine on his finger and he rubbed it on Mr Lubbock’s gum or put his finger into Mr Lubbock’s mouth.”
Stuart, who also took ecstasy at some point in the evening, recoiled unhappily. Barrymore has always maintained he did not give any drugs to his guest and that the only illegal substance he took that night was cannabis.
But the entertainer has admitted to having a heavy drug problem in the past and during that evening he says he downed almost a whole bottle of whisky plus wine.
Former drag queen Kenney, then 31, arrived home between 3am and 4am with two girls from the club, Kelly Campbell and Claire Jones. Two of Barrymore’s friends from Roydon village, James Futers and Simon Shaw, also turned up to swell the party numbers to nine.
Who was where and when between this point and the discovery of Stuart’s body has been much disputed. Kenney, Merritt and Stuart are said to have shared the Jacuzzi outside next to the pool, while Barrymore claims he showed Shaw and Futers his new house extension.
The comic said: “The last time I saw Stuart was when he was walking towards the Jacuzzi. A couple of girls and a couple of lads went there.”
Heart attack
Barrymore’s boyfriend left the other men to it and witnesses say Stuart was mucking about with a baseball cap around the pool.
There seems to have been ten crucial minutes or more when he was alone by the water. At what time Barrymore found the body has not been established, because in one account he stated it was “about 4am” and in another he said it was “between 4.30am and 4.45am”.
Neighbours recalled hearing screams later than that — at 5am. According to Barrymore, it was on the way to the Jacuzzi with Shaw and Futers that he saw Stuart at the bottom of the pool, face up, illuminated by the lights.
Rather than jumping in to rescue his guest, Barrymore ran to first aider Kenney, and later claimed this was because he couldn’t swim — although both his now deceased wife Cheryl and a former bodyguard insisted he was competent in the water.
Instead, Shaw and Futers were left to pull the body out, then Kenney attempted mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Barrymore told his autobiographer that another guest called an ambulance almost immediately, but records show that no 999 call was received until 5.46am, apparently at least an hour after Stuart’s body had been found.
Claire Jones, then 17, told police that during that time she saw Barrymore change his clothes, go through his drawers then leave with a “bundle of material”.
She added: “Jonathan (Kenney) was rushing through the bungalow before the ambulance and police arrived. I got the impression he was hiding something.”
By the time the emergency services arrived, the host had gone to a neighbour’s house.
The paramedics thought Stuart had suffered a heart attack and found no signs of blood either in the water or on his clothes. For two hours staff at the Princess Alexandra Hospital in Harlow tried to save his life, before declaring him dead at 8.23am.
Meanwhile, police asked a guest to measure the pool’s temperature, rather than do it themselves, even though it could have been important evidence in determining how Stuart died — as jumping into a very cold pool may have triggered a heart attack.
The pool thermometer has never been recovered, nor has a missing shed door handle, which experts claim could have been used in a sexual assault on Stuart.
Barrymore has repeatedly referenced the thermometer in interviews, stating correctly that a nurse had inserted one into Stuart’s anus 14 times to measure his temperature during life-saving efforts.
The comic insists that Stuart suffered no sexual injuries during the party. But pathologist Professor Jack Crane told the inquest the injuries could not have been caused by a thermometer.
He said they were so severe they must have been caused by another object being forced into him. Whether that caused his death was a matter of great disagreement between experts at the 2012 hearing.
Dr Michael Heath, the pathologist who examined the body on the night and who later resigned from Home Office work after making errors in two murder cases, claimed it was due to drowning. Others suggested drink and drugs could be to blame.
Stuart had taken enough ecstasy and cocaine to kill him and was three times the drink-drive limit, roughly the equivalent of eight pints.
Even more disturbingly, other pathologists asserted that marks on the victim’s forehead could have been caused by an arm being clamped around his head while being raped and that he died due to suffocation.
Stuart’s father Terry has speculated that his son was dead before he entered the pool and that drowning was a diversion used by his killer.
Barrymore, Kenney and Merritt were arrested in 2007 on suspicion of murder and serious sexual assault but were released without charge. They have always maintained their innocence.
Barrymore has apologised for fleeing the scene, and last year dropped a compensation claim against Essex police for wrongful arrest when appeal judges said he would receive only nominal damages.
From what happened that fateful night Detective Chief Inspector Stephen Jennings believes “Stuart Lubbock was murdered”. This case is definitely not closed.
