Man arrested over death of Stuart Lubbock at Michael Barrymore's home (in 2001)

[Mike 03]

The Guardian
Wed 17 Mar 2021 06.15 EDT

Police have arrested a 50-year-old man in connection with the indecent assault and murder of Stuart Lubbock, who died at the home of the entertainer Michael Barrymore 20 years ago, after new information came to light following a TV documentary.

Essex police said the man, who has not been named, was arrested in Cheshire and remained in custody where he was being questioned. Det Supt Lucy Morris, Essex police’s head of major crime, said the arrest was made after there was “significant new information” following a renewed appeal in February 2020.

Lubbock, 31, had been attending a party at Barrymore’s home in Roydon with eight other people on 31 March 2001.

The 68-year-old former television presenter Barrymore, who became a household name for shows such as Strike It Lucky, has always denied involvement in the death.

A postmortem showed Lubbock had severe internal injuries that suggested he had been sexually assaulted. Alcohol, ecstasy and cocaine were found in his bloodstream.

Read more at link: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/mar/17/man-arrested-over-stuart-lubbock-death-at-michael-barrymore-home

Background on this story:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Barrymore#Death_of_Stuart_Lubbock

Following a party at Barrymore's house in Essex in the early hours of 31 March 2001, a 31-year-old man, Stuart Lubbock, died. Three witnesses – including Barrymore himself – claimed to have found him motionless in Barrymore's swimming pool. Barrymore did not appear again on television until the following February when he returned with a new series of six episodes of My Kind of Music. Witnesses disagreed on whether Lubbock was found floating on top of the pool or at the bottom of it. Barrymore had said he was on top of the pool.[17] The cause of death was found to be drowning. Lubbock, described as a "bubbly partygoer", had traces of drugs and alcohol in his system. In the postmortem, pathologists discovered severe anal injuries, which several experts, including senior Home Office pathologist Nathaniel Cary, would later agree were consistent with a sexual assault.[18][19]

Many tabloid newspapers accused Barrymore of holding drug-fuelled gay orgies in his home and asserted that he must have had some responsibility for the death. It was claimed that Barrymore had been seen at the party rubbing cocaine onto Lubbock's gums, an allegation Barrymore denied.[20]

I wonder if the new suspect is one of the two or three persons of interest they had detained and questioned in the past?