Doherty was questioned by the police but no more came of it and he has always denied any wrongdoing or involvement in Mark’s death. Johnny, who initially denied any involvement, then weeks later confessed to Mark’s murder at Bethnal Green police station, before then retracting it claiming he was intoxicated and stressed, was also questioned but faced no further action.

The Metropolitan Police investigated Mark Blanco’s death as an unexplained incident, revisited the case after the coroner’s inquest, questioned key figures and ultimately concluded that there wasn’t sufficient evidence for criminal charges. Yet even after all these years his family still have questions over how Mark died, with a BBC Newsnight investigation in 2012 and a Channel 4 documentary in 2023, spearheaded by his mother, Sheila Blanco.

After that I had quite a few more encounters with Johnny Headlock as well as many of his and Pete’s cronies and every time there were mad tales of Pete, Kate, bust ups, drugs and brushes with the law. And there was always a sinister, frightening and seedy side to it all.

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I attended two of Pete’s drug-offences court cases in both 2007 and 2008 as a reporter. I also sat through Amy Winehouse’s husband, Blake Fielder-Civil’s, week-long trial at Snaresbrook Crown Court in July 2008 reporting for Grazia, in which he was sentenced to 27 months in prison for trial fixing and grievous bodily harm. Amy would sporadically turn up to support her ‘Blake incarcerated,’ a teetering, tottering, tiny beehived mess, swarmed by paparazzi.

And it was the words of Blake’s Barrister, just before his sentencing, that have stayed with me to this day, that really throw light on just how devastating these famous figures’ descent into drug addiction had become.

Jeremy Dean KC, told the judge that his client had a “long and wretched history” of substance abuse. Dean told how despite a number of past suicide attempts, Blake was determined to rebuild his life with Amy. “It’s their ambition to divorce themselves from hard drugs, not to separate themselves from each other,” he said. “He knows that if he fails, an appointment with calamity awaits, not just for him but for his wife as well.” And while Blake is still with us today, we all know what happened next.