7 AUG 2026
PUNISHED WITHOUT A CHARGE EVER BROUGHT
A guest died at his home in Essex in March 2001. No one has been charged over that death in the twenty-five years since. The television career built across two decades did not survive the investigation that followed.
Stuart Lubbock, 31, was found unconscious in the swimming pool at Michael Barrymore's home in Roydon in the early hours of 31 March 2001, after a party. He was pronounced dead in hospital that morning. Pathologists recorded serious internal injuries, and alcohol, cocaine and ecstasy in his system. An inquest in September 2002 returned an open verdict. Barrymore has never been charged with any offence connected to the death.
He was then among the most valuable performers on British television, fronting Strike It Lucky, My Kind of People and his own Saturday night variety show. In October 2001 he accepted a police caution for drugs offences at the property, and no further charges followed. In September 2002 ITV said it had no plans to commission further work from him. A one-man comeback show was abandoned in 2003 after three nights of poor reviews. He left for New Zealand that December and filed for voluntary bankruptcy the following year.
In June 2007, six years after the death, Barrymore was arrested with two other men on suspicion of Lubbock's rape and murder. He was released without charge. Essex Police later admitted the arrest was unlawful, because the arresting officer did not have reasonable grounds to suspect him.
The civil claim that followed produced a mixed result. In August 2017 the High Court held he was entitled to more than nominal damages for false imprisonment. In December 2018 the Court of Appeal reversed that finding and held he was entitled to nominal damages only. The claim, which he had valued at more than £2.4m for lost earnings, was discontinued by agreement in July 2019, and the force said no payment was made.
The death remains unexplained and the investigation remains open. No court has been asked to decide whether Barrymore bears any responsibility for it, because no charge was ever brought. What the record holds instead is an arrest later admitted to be unlawful, a career that stopped in 2002, and an association that has outlasted every process capable of testing it.
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