Trail of death, drugs follows 'Pied Piper'

Sheila Blanco calls Pete Doherty the Pied Piper. "He leads the easily impressionable; he has this act of being a pseudo-Bohemian, when in fact he's just posing," she says in a measured voice, one that belies a maelstrom of emotions within.

Blanco's anger towards the Babyshambles band's frontman came rushing back last week after the death of a young female film-maker who, like Blanco's son, Mark, had become part of Doherty's scene, with tragic consequences.

Robin Whitehead, 27, was, according to tributes paid last week, popular and caring, a thoughtful person loved by friends.

Like Mark Blanco, Whitehead had come from an enviable background. He had attended an independent grammar school on a scholarship and read philosophy at Trinity College, Cambridge, while she was a member of the ultra-rich Goldsmith clan (her mother, Dido, is a cousin of Jemima Khan).

Like Mark Blanco, Whitehead had come from a creative family. Her father, film-maker Peter Whitehead, documented much of the counterculture of the 60s; Sheila Blanco is a classical music teacher.

And also like Mark Blanco, Whitehead was drawn to the most depressed hinterlands of east London, where industrial warehouses and high-rises provide a refuge for the artists, musicians and hangers-on who orbit Doherty, former boyfriend of model Kate Moss.

Paramedics answering a 999 call found Whitehead dead in a flat in Hackney where Doherty had once lived. It is understood that drug paraphernalia was found at the address, which is home to one of Doherty's closest friends, a musician with whom he has often collaborated: Peter "Wolfman" Wolfe.

Doherty was seen at the flat, owned by Gill Samworth, a middle-aged woman often described as his surrogate mother, the day before and the day after Whitehead died.

Wolfe, a self-confessed addict, said Whitehead had not taken drugs in the hours before her death, but police are waiting for the results of toxicology tests.

The police are likely to question Doherty but a police spokesman said Whitehead's death was not being treated as suspicious.

Mark Blanco fell to his death three years ago from the balcony of a first-floor flat in Whitechapel where a party was being held. The party was attended by Doherty and hosted by the star's literary agent, Paul Roundhill, a one-time crack cocaine user whose squalid flat briefly became a mecca for fans keen to catch a glimpse of the ex-Libertines singer-guitarist.

Sheila Blanco hopes the police will receive more help in the Whitehead case than Doherty provided following the death of her only son. She is still seeking answers from the rock star, one of the last people to see her son alive.

On the night of his death, Mark Blanco had arrived at the party in a state of excitement. He was putting on a play, The Accidental Death of an Anarchist, in which the main character falls from a window to his death, and had been keen to persuade Doherty to attend. But the singer was not interested.

Blanco was known to have left the flat after a confrontation with Roundhill, Doherty and the star's minder, Johnny "Headlock" Jeannevol, only to return shortly after.

Seconds later he was lying dead on the ground outside, having fallen from a first-floor balcony. All three men have denied any wrongdoing and have been interviewed by police only as witnesses.

CCTV footage shows Doherty and his then girlfriend, 19-year-old Kate Russell-Pavier (again, another Doherty acolyte from a privileged background - her father composes scores for television and films) running away from the scene and past Mark's body.

Doherty and several friends went to a hotel in central London, where they wrecked a room and disturbed a wedding party.

Sheila Blanco would dearly like Doherty and his friends to account for their actions that night, as would many others.

One question thrown up by the two tragic deaths is why bright, well-off young people are drawn to Doherty's squalid world. Part of the fascination, it seems, is Doherty himself.

Whitehead, granddaughter of the late Teddy Goldsmith, founder of the Ecologist magazine, and a great-niece of the late financier Sir James Goldsmith, had become part of Doherty's circle while working on a documentary about the musician.

At least one gossip column reported that they had been lovers, but Samworth says they were not. Nevertheless, there seems to have been an intense relationship between the two.

Whitehead's website shows pictures of Doherty with his body encased in plaster, lying in a crucifixion pose. It is a familiar pose to fans of Doherty, who plays up the image of the tortured genius, often painting with his own blood. As with Amy Winehouse, the car crash nature of his life makes him an object of fascination, and that helps shift records.

Sheila Blanco has her own theory on why her son was drawn to Doherty's world. "He wanted to experience lots of things," she says.

She paints a picture of a brilliant young man whose inquiring mind could be a hindrance. "Mark had always been a free spirit; he was a person who couldn't be told what to do. He was incredibly bright, but maybe not to his advantage; he could be quite boring to people his own age."

It was this thirst for new experiences that may explain why Mark, like Whitehead, sought to distance himself in a culture far removed from his upbringing.

But his desire to immerse himself in this counterculture may have blinded him to some of its dangers.

Little good, for example, comes to those who encounter Roundhill. Fiona Russell-Powell, a writer and former member of pop group ABC, once remarked: "He is only interested in drugs and will sell anyone down the river to fund his habit."

Roundhill admitted at the inquest, which recorded an open verdict, to setting fire to Blanco's hat and to punching him three times in the face in the minutes before his death.

Roundhill, who rejects allegations that he is or has been a drug dealer, says he has nothing more to tell the police about what happened to Blanco.

He also denies knowing anything about singer-songwriter Paul Cunniffe who, in 2001, fell to his death from outside Roundhill's former flat in Whitechapel, the same place where Mark died.

"The police went round three or four times but nobody answered," said Johanna Hardy, Paul's girlfriend. "I asked them: is that it? They said there was no case to pursue as far as they were concerned."

After Blanco's death, Roundhill was evicted and lived in a shelter. Today he cuts a frail figure, exhausted by drugs. He continues trying to make money by selling Doherty's blood paintings. But many people have it in for him, it seems: his flat was reportedly firebombed in 2008.

Jeannevol, Doherty's minder, suffered a stroke after Mark Blanco's death. He had confessed to pushing Blanco over the balcony, but later retracted the claim. Police sources claim none of what Jeannevol says can be taken seriously. Doherty's former girlfriend, Russell-Pavier, has gone to ground, while Wolfe has just left rehab and claims to be trying to stay clean.

The only one of Doherty's circle doing well is the singer himself, whose regular appearances in court on drug offences simply add to his renown and promote his image. Last week, the 30-year-old was given a £750 (£1700) fine after admitting walking into a court with 13 wraps of heroin in his pocket.

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF PETE DOHERTY

Born March 12, 1979.
Parents: Mother Jacqueline is a nurse and his father Peter is a retired Army officer.
Education: Nicholas Chamberlaine comprehensive school in Bedworth, Warwickshire. Read English at Queen Mary, University of London, but dropped out after first year.
Music career: Founder member of the Libertines, frontman for Babyshambles, now appears as a solo artist calling himself "Peter Doherty".
Criminal record: Jailed in 2003 for burgling fellow Libertine Carl Barat's flat. Convicted in total of 22 drug offences and six motoring offences.

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