Post by Joanna on Jun 28, 2015 20:53:16 GMT -5
Death Stalks the Dark World of Pete Doherty
Pictured above (left to right) are Alan Wass, Robyn Whitehead and Mark Blanco. What do these three have in common? They were young, talented and had their whole lives ahead of them – until they entered the dark world of Pete Doherty. Cambridge graduate Mark Blanco, 30, fell from a first-floor balcony December 3, 2006, during a wild, drug-fueled party. Robyn Whitehead, was the 27-year-old glamorous heiress to the wealthy Goldsmith dynasty. She died January 24, 2010, after taking heroin in a squalid East London flat. And on February 20, 2015, talented musician Alan Wass. 33, mysteriously fell through a stained glass partition and died April 23.
Blanco, who studied philosophy at Trinity College, Cambridge, became a cause celebre after plummeting to his death while partying with the infamous rock star. Blanco’s mother Sheila told The Mail: “Doherty is high on God knows what most of the time, so maybe his conduct is related to that. I know Alan Wass’s death is not directly related to Doherty, so one must not become emotional about it, but it is certainly another death among his ‘crowd.’ There was also Robyn Whitehead, the Goldsmith heiress, who died after mixing with Doherty. There does appear to be a pattern, doesn’t there?”
As Doherty, frontman with The Libertines, prepares to perform at Strathallan Castle for the T in The Park festival in Perthshire, Scotland, the grieving families want to shine a light on the grim world of the singer who, they say, has contributed to their suffering. Doherty’s now notorious lifestyle was spotlighted in December 2006 when Blanco was found lying unconscious in the street beneath the balcony of an East London flat after a bitter row with Doherty and others. CCTV footage subsequently emerged showing the singer-songwriter leaving the party and walking past Blanco’s body before emergency services reached the scene in Whitechapel. Doherty would not be interviewed by police concerning Blanco’s death until October 2011.
College lecturer Sheila, 71, of Guildford, said: “The worst thing was to walk over Mark’s body as he lay dying in the gutter. Not because it was Doherty, but simply because it is disgraceful behavior of anyone and in some countries it is a criminal offence to walk away from someone in distress.”
The apparently inexplicable demise of someone so young is a recurring story in Doherty’s inner circle. Whitehead died in 2010 after taking heroin in a blood-splattered flat alongside Doherty and Wass, amid claims the trio had been involved in a furious row. The wealthy heiress, the great niece of billionaire Sir James Goldsmith, was making a documentary called Road to Albion about Doherty when they argued about how he would be presented in the film. A toxicologist told the inquest into Whitehead’s death that she had died of heroin poisoning. It is believed that even though she had small levels of heroin in her blood, she died because she was a “naïve” user.
Her father, Peter Whitehead, 78, who was widely hailed as the father of the pop video after he became famous for his films of The Rolling Stones in the 1960s and subsequently Led Zeppelin, when the band was at its zenith, has maintained a dignified silence about Robyn’s death. Now, however, he feels it is time to speak out. Whitehead, who is writing a book which threatens to expose the seedy world of Doherty, accuses the rock star of “breaking her down” during the row that took place just hours before her death. “Pete Doherty and Alan Wass argued that she was not trying to tell the right story about Pete Doherty in the film she was making,: he says. “They believed she would not tell the truth, but Robyn stood her ground. She was an intelligent girl. She knew exactly what she was doing and then Wass came along, together with Doherty, that Saturday afternoon and attacked her mentally and broke her down.” A day after the confrontation with Doherty over the documentary, Robyn was found dead in a dingy flat belonging to one of his friends. Her father says: “Robyn rang her mother after the row. She was terribly upset.”
Whitehead says he had originally started the film project, but passed it on to his daughter. “I had decided I was wasting my time and had better things to do,” he claims. “It was at that point that Robyn, who had been working with me, said ‘Dad, let me finish it.’ So, unfortunately, it was me who introduced Robyn to Pete Doherty on the basis that she would go on to finish my film. It is for me to remember that I introduced them.”
While Whitehead begins work on a book about his daughter, another inquest is scheduled. Despite being one of his closest friends, Doherty is unlikely to appear at Westminster Coroner’s Court in two weeks’ time when the inquest into the death of Alan Wass begins. Wass died two months ago of an apparent heart attack after severing an artery in his arm when he fell through a window. For his mother, Angela, the grief of coming to terms with her only son’s death is compounded by the fact Alan’s reputation will forever be framed by Doherty. Sitting on her sofa in her semi-detached home in North London, Angela looks at the ceramic urn in the front room containing her son’s ashes, and recalls, “They were friends before Doherty was famous and they carried on their friendship. Doherty was best man at Alan’s wedding. Alan was a true friend to him. Alan had just signed a massive record deal. It was the break of his life. His career was taking off. My son lived for music and he died for music. Who would think that at 33, he would be dead? When I saw him in that coffin, all I wanted him to do was to wake up. I had made my will just a month before he died and the solicitors came back to me. They said you have not ticked the box in the event that your children pre-decease you and asked me what to do. I told them I did not need to do that because my children would not pre-decease me. Whoever thinks your child is going to die before you?”
Pete Doherty
Doherty’s rise to fame, if not immediate fortune, began in 1997 with his band The Libertines. Wass played alongside him in the charismatic band whose eponymous album topped the charts in 2004. Their cult reputation was sealed by Doherty’s very public descent into drug addiction and dysfunction that eventually led to his serving time in prison. At the height of their fame, Doherty was asked to leave the band and eventually the group disbanded, leaving Doherty free to focus on his next band, Babyshambles. His career and drug addiction tracked that of his close friend Amy Winehouse and Doherty’s reputation was further enhanced by his tumultuous relationship with supermodel Kate Moss. Moss and Doherty met in 2005 until their on-off affair reached the end of the road in 2007. But by then, Doherty had already become ensnared in a highly controversial death. In May 2011, he was jailed for six months for possession of crack cocaine. The singer’s downfall was sealed by footage that had emerged showing him smoking crack with Robyn Whitehead and Alan Wass. Two months after his conviction, Winehouse – the multi award-winning singer – died after losing her battle with alcohol.
A fan who modeled himself on Doherty also lost his life following a heroin overdose that year. One of those present at the flat on the night of Mark Blanco’s death was Johnny “Headlock” Jeannevol, once a close friend and security manager for Doherty. After suffering from ill health for several years, Jeannevol believes he has turned the corner but only after cutting all ties with the controversial singer. “I had to stay away from Pete for the sake of my health,” he insists. “It is stressful being with Pete and I had to calm down. I don’t have his number any more. But I heard through friends that he was a bit gutted Alan had passed away and was a bit shaken up by it.” When asked why people around Doherty pay such a price, Jeannevol cannot resist a well-worn phrase: “It’s rock ‘n’ roll, isn’t it?”
Mark Blanco’s mother is still battling with police to discover what really happened the night her son fell from a balcony to his death. The CCTV footage recovered from the scene would subsequently become the focus of a long-running legal battle between his family and the Metropolitan Police. An FBI-accredited expert believes that footage of the balcony seconds before Blanco fell proves incontrovertibly there was another person with him – begging the question: Was he pushed? At the subsequent inquest, it emerged that Blanco, who once worked for Goldman Sachs, had visited the flat of Paul Roundhill, a close friend of Doherty’s, in a bid to publicize a play Blanco was putting on. Bizarrely the play, Accidental Death of an Anarchist, features a character who dies after falling out a window. Roundhill admitted he had punched Blanco in the face several times. It also emerged that Doherty had told an acquaintance to “have a word” with Blanco. The inquest recorded an open verdict and rejected suicide. The corner called for a fresh investigation.
In an interview with the NME in 2012, Doherty claimed the police understood he was innocent. “The murder squad down at Limehouse, yeah, they opened and closed that case three or four times,” he reported. “The pressure they put on me was completely minimal. And they kind of said off-tape, ‘Pete, we’re sorry about this, right, but the family are convinced that their son was murdered.’ I can understand it and it does look dodgy.”
In two weeks’ time, Westminster Coroner’s Court will hear the inquest of Alan Wass. A spokesman for Doherty says: ‘The inquest into Alan Wass is pending and therefore it would clearly be inappropriate to comment. Peter Doherty fully co-operated with the police at all times in relation to Mark Blanco and there were no criminal implications for Peter Doherty at all.”
On Friday night, Doherty was back on the stage when he performed a surprise gig at the Glastonbury festival. Swigging from a bottle of beer, he dedicated the song “Time for Heroes” to his late band mate, saying: “Alan Wass, if you’re up there looking down. Or down there looking up.”
But Blanco’s mother Sheila, who is still waiting for a review of the evidence of her son’s death, warns Alan’s parents that they shouldn’t expect to hear any words of comfort from the star. “Doherty has never come forward to say anything about this case.” she says. “Nor has he ever apologized to me. He has never even spoken to me.”
Source: Adam Luck, The Daily Mail, June 28, 2015.
