Saturday, April 14, 2012

Blanco family, CPS unimpressed by Doherty NME interview

In the NME last week, Pete Doherty made some large claims about the night that Mark Blanco died.

It was a bit odd that the paper didn't attempt to push him a bit - particularly, on the idea that the Met Police has a video which shows Blanco falling to his death which clears him.

It was even more surprising that, having gifted a large chunk of space for Pete to put his case, the NME didn't bother to contact either the Met or the Blanco family to put a counterpoint. You know, in the interests of not looking so desperate for a Doherty exclusive that they'd let him say anything - however incredible - with barely a mutter.

The second part, in this week's paper, doesn't get much better. Doherty sounds off on the various qualities of London against Parisian heroin while "smoking something". When he tells Jamie Fullerton that in Paris, when you score

"it's like China White"
the response is a weak
It's a better class of heroin in Paris?
as if this was a bit with Alex James banging on about cheese.

Once the interview is over, in the epilogue, Fullerton suggests that Doherty's ongoing drug use is "disappointing", which is an odd choice of word for a man who has been brain-twanging all the way through his talk with the paper. Rather an understatement.

Meanwhile, Jamie Doward for The Guardian has been doing the research the NME chose not to, following up Doherty's tale of the night Mark Blanco died.

First, there's a perspective from Blanco's mother:
Blanco's friends and family have attacked the claims as a desperate attempt to rewrite the past. "Mark was a pacifist who would never raise a hand to anyone," said Sheila Blanco, Mark's mother. "Pathetic, tawdry PR stunts such as these strengthen even further my resolve: to secure justice for my son and to expose anyone who has obstructed the protracted investigation into his tragic death."
And then a quick call to the Met about the video which puts Pete into the clear:
The Met has referred questions about Doherty's claims of video footage to the CPS. Last year the CPS said in a statement that "CCTV footage did show several individuals later leaving the same building that Mr Blanco had fallen from and passing his body, but this evidence does not shed any light on how Mr Blanco fell or who, if anyone, may have been responsible".
So, no film, then. Quite an important point for the NME to not mention, surely?


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