Pete Doherty candidly addresses Mark Blanco's tragic death and 'cowardly act'

15 November 2023 , 13:59

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Pete Doherty candidly addresses Mark Blanco's tragic death and 'cowardly act'

Former Libertines frontman Pete Doherty has opened up about how a moment of selfishness led many to believe that he was involved in Mark Blanco's tragic death.

Mark fell to his death from a balcony during a party that Pete was also attending in east London. In 2006, the amateur actor fell from the first floor balcony and died of a sustained head injury. Pete has always denied that he had any knowledge of the incident but due to the fact he was caught on CCTV running away from the scene - his account of that night has teen questionable.

Pete Doherty opens up to Louis Theroux in documentary (BBC/Mindhouse Productions/Ryan McNamara)

Following an investigation into Mark's death, no charges were brought against Pete. But Mark's mother Sheila, had launched a campaign to try and find out what had happened to her son - and has put Pete in the firing line. Speaking to Louis Theroux, he said: "You couldn’t blame her for that either. Her son fell to his death and some people, I think, genuinely believe he was thrown to his death. And then I’m on camera running away. I never met Sheila Blanco, but I can understand her anger. I think her anger at me is… well, it is misplaced. Although (the circumstances were) also shady and f***ed up.”

Casting his memory back to the night of the accident, Pete recalled that Mark was doing a play called Accidental Death Of An Anarchist, which was about a man who fell to his death from a balcony. But when the two met, Pete says there was an unexplained "friction" and he felt that he "couldn’t connect with him at all." He added: "Something weird was going on. There was an altercation with Mark Blanco. We all had an altercation with Mark Blanco. There was pushing and shoving – this childish playground thing going on. And then the next thing is he’s on the floor and his skull’s cracked open."

Looking back Pete said that he should have flushed the drugs down the toilet but instead kept hold of them and ran away because he didn't want to be caught for possession. He continued: "I probably didn’t take it seriously enough at that moment. Maybe I should have just stood my ground, taken a deep breath, and had the f***ing balls to just flush everything down the toilet and be there when the police came. But I didn’t want to see the police. I didn’t want to. It was a f***ng inconvenience to me and that’s an awful thing to say because he’s lying there, dead on the street and I was more concerned about getting nicked for possession.”

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Questions over what had actually happened to Mark resurfaced following a documentary in September called Pete Doherty, Who Killed My Son? In the programme Mark's mother Sheila is seen saying: "He was definitely pushed over, thrown over, but the Metropolitan Police do not wish to uncover what the truth is. It’s not the job of a mother to investigate her son’s death." And she has asked for the police to re-examine the case.

Responding to the documentary at the time, Pete told The Evening Standard: "There is no new information to have. The further away we get from that moment, whatever happened to Mark, the less likely we are to find out… Her feelings are valid so if her taking it out on me makes her feel better, let her do it."

Lucretia Munro