The mother of actor Mark Blanco is calling this week for the Home Office to reopen the investigation into his suspicious death at a Whitechapel party with rock star Pete Doherty.
Sheila Blanco still searches for answers on today’s eighth anniversary of Mark’s tragic death when he plunged from a balcony at Fieldgate Mansons in 2006.
“I just want truth and justice for my son,” she told the East London Advertiser this week. “It’s been eight years of constant search to get the truth.
“But instead it’s been constant frustration, always trying to push people to do their job.”
The part-retired university lecturer has spent £20,000 on private investigations into Mark’s death and blames police for failing to bring a prosecution.
![East London Advertiser: Sheila Blanco [left] with George Tavern's Pauline Forster](/resources/images/14933097.jpg?type=mds-article-620 "East London Advertiser: Sheila Blanco [left] with George Tavern's Pauline Forster")
“Mark’s life was taken away from him when he was just 30,” she added. “But the police are doing little. I’ve gone through all levels of chain of command, just two steps short of the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, but have got nowhere.”
She has now contacted her MP Anne Milton, a government whip, and went to meet her in the Houses of Parliament with a QC to press for the Home Office to take it up.
Mark was in the lead role of ‘Death of an Anarchist’ due to open at Stepney’s George Tavern studio theatre when he died.
He turned up at literary agent Paul Roundhill’s flat in Fieldgate Mansions overlooking Romford Street to get backing for the production, ironically in which his character plunges to his death from the fourth floor of a police station.
He got involved in a bust-up at the flat with Doherty and his minder Johnny ‘Headlock’ Jeannevol, witnesses said.
Mark fell from the first-floor balcony at 12.30am on December 3, 2006. He died the following day at the Royal London Hospital, holding his mother’s hand.
Police at the time said there was nothing suspicious. But coroner Dr Andrew Reid returned an open verdict at the Poplar inquest the following October, which heard that ‘Headlock’ had retracted his police confession saying he was “off his head”.
The coroner asked Scotland Yard to investigate, but no-one was ever charged.
The studio theatre at The George in Commercial Road where Mark Blanco was due to perform was later renamed by landlady Pauline Forster in his honour.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here