Thirty-one-year-old Stuart Lubbock, a meat factory supervisor and father of two, was spending the night of Friday, March 30th, 2001 partying with some friends. At a club called Millennium in Harlow, Essex, he happened to run into Michael Barrymore, a rather famous TV host and comedian, and at some point during the night, Barrymore invited Stuart back to an after party at his sprawling mansion in Roydon. Stuart accepted the invitation, and CCTV footage would later show him cheerfully leaving the club with the comedian’s entourage.
The gathering at the Barrymore residence was small, but exceedingly wild; copious amounts of alcohol and drugs were consumed. Also in attendance at the party was Barrymore’s then-partner, Jonathan Kenney; a friend named Justin Merritt; Justin’s sister Kylie; a chef named James Futers; and three acquaintances: Kelly Campbell, Simon Shaw, and Claire Jones, who at the time was only seventeen years old.
The party raged on well into the wee hours, and then, tragedy struck. At approximately quarter to six on the morning of March 31st, a call came in to emergency services. The male caller stated, “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.”
When paramedics arrived, they discovered the body of Stuart Lubbock, lying on the side of the swimming pool, clearly deceased. According to partygoers, Stuart had been very drunk and high, as all of them were, and he had presumably wandered off alone, fallen into the water, and drowned. No one else at the party claimed to have seen him fall in; all asserted that they had simply found him floating there and had pulled him out.
Initially, it seemed an open and shut case; an autopsy revealed that Stuart’s blood alcohol level had been several times the legal limit, and additionally, traces of cocaine, ecstasy, and amphetamines were also discovered in his system. The cause of death was at first ruled to be an accidental drowning.
But even from the beginning, there were hints that a more sinister explanation might be closer to the truth. Pathologists noted extremely severe rectal injuries that appeared consistent with a sexual assault, most likely perpetrated with a hard, inanimate object of some sort. There were also small, broken blood vessels in the face that could have suggested suffocation or strangling. Further, little to no water was found in the victim’s lungs, which left open the possibility that Stuart may have been dead before being placed in the pool.
A hypothesis arose that Stuart Lubbock could have possibly been raped and murdered, his body then thrown into the pool to make the death appear accidental. Alternately, he may have died of cardiac arrest during the course of a rape.
Due to the suggestion of violence upon Stuart’s body, three of the partygoers—Jonathan Kenney, Justin Merritt, and Michael Barrymore himself—were arrested a few months after the incident, but were subsequently released without charge, and at the inquest in September of 2002, an open verdict was returned, meaning that it was not clear whether the death was accidental or the result of a homicide.
Niggling facts still kept the case in the forefront of investigators’ minds, however. For one thing, it came to light that Michael Barrymore’s then-PA, Michael Browne, had been called to the house before police could seal off the scene, suggesting to some that he may have been disposing of evidence. Partygoer Claire Jones also told investigators that she had seen Michael Barrymore digging through drawers, changing his clothes, and leaving the house with a bundle under his arm before police arrived.
There was also the fact that a pool thermometer and a broken door handle—both of which reportedly appeared in crime scene photographs—were later found to be missing from the property. Pathologists could not rule out the possibility that one or both of these objects could have caused the violent anal injuries found on Stuart’s remains.
Moreover, it was revealed that Barrymore claimed to have discovered the body in the pool between four-thirty and four-forty-five a.m., though an ambulance was not called until more than an hour later. Neighbors had reported hearing screams at approximately five a.m., though it is unclear whether they were the victim’s screams, or those of the other partygoers upon discovering the body.
Barrymore also told authorities that he had not jumped into the pool to attempt to save Stuart because he didn’t know how to swim; his ex-wife and former manager Cheryl, though, later alleged that this was a lie, and that Barrymore could swim just fine. Cheryl, who had married Barrymore in 1976, had divorced him in 1996 after he publicly announced that he was gay. She also wrote a book about her life with him, Catch a Falling Star, in which she claimed he was physically abusive to her; Barrymore denied the allegations, but was open about his alcoholism and substance abuse problems.
The homicide investigation was reopened in 2007, at which point Michael Barrymore, along with Jonathan Kenney and Justin Merritt, were arrested once again, charged with the rape and murder of Stuart Lubbock. However, just as before, there was insufficient evidence to pursue the charges further, and all three were released, though police have subsequently come forward and stated that none of the three has been eliminated from suspicion.
In early February of 2020, Channel 4 in the UK aired a documentary called Barrymore: The Body in the Pool, which followed the course of the inquiry up to that stage; new investigators were assigned to the case in early 2020. Michael Barrymore has continued to assert his innocence in the possible homicide, and the other seven individuals who were there that night have consistently done the same.
Unsurprisingly, Barrymore’s formerly lucrative television career took a massive nosedive following the incident and news of his possible involvement, and has never really recovered. In June of 2007, he sued the Essex Police for damages, but eventually dropped the charges when it became clear that he would only receive a “nominal” amount of compensation.
Shortly before the Channel 4 documentary aired, Stuart Lubbock’s father Terry took to the media to urge anyone who knew anything about how his son died to come forward. In March of 2021, a fifty-year-old Cheshire man was arrested on suspicion of the crime, but was released in August with no charges filed. Crimestoppers is still offering a forty-thousand-pound reward for information in the case.
Crime Immemorial 