no surprise as speight succumbs to suicide

Missing children’s TV star Mark Speight has been found dead at Paddington Station. He had not been seen since last Monday, when he disappeared following an inquest into the death of his fiancee Natasha Collins. Natasha, as you have probably read in the news, died in January after a drink and drugs binge at the home she shared with Speight. According to reports, she was found in the bath with scalds covering about 60% of her body and a “very significant’ amount of cocaine in her system at the time”.

Speight found her body. Understandably “devastated” by her death, his emotional stability has been the subject of intense scrutiny ever since. His death is being treated as suicide.

Of course it is suicide. We can’t possibly imagine how the poor man must have been feeling. Some have had harsh tongues about the “consequences of dabbling in drugs” in a ‘well, look at where it gets you’ way but of course, nobody really needed to adopt this accusatory tactic. Why apportion blame? Speight is acutely aware that just one night of illegal drug taking and alcohol abuse can destroy multiple lives. Sadly, like so many, he discovered this far too late, through the untimely death of the woman who he had described as “the love of his life”.

The blame he must have heaped on his own head between the incident and the moment he ended his own life, I imagine, was enormous. You could argue that so it should have been. That reckless evening where two so-called ‘celebs’ pissed about with cocaine and sleeping pills - possibly believing themselves immune to the negative consequences - robbed the world of an aspiring actress, a family of a bright young daughter, an audience of a potentially good role model (of course, her drug taking activities kept well out of the limelight) and a man of his soulmate. Perhaps he should indeed feel empty and repeatedly wish he could turn the clock back?

Collins’s death was a tragic accident. Yes, they should have known better. No, they didn’t mean it. But that is the nature of accidents. Speight’s death - him having been unable to find an outlet for his grief - makes this a double tragedy. Two families will have been ripped apart by these related incidents; the latest awful news comes as a second blow to Natasha’s family, who took Speight in when he felt he couldn’t go home.

The important thing to do now is use this story to highlight the very real dangers that drugs pose, even for people who use them “only now and then”. I remember from when I was at university, there’s a whole raft of middle class kids with the money to waste on drugs like cocaine, who binge drink and dance the night away. They think “ah, I dabble occassionally, that will never happen to me.” They are arrogant and happy to turn a blind eye to the dangers.

What now eh? I never said I had the solution, of course. I never do. Sometimes I just think too much. I just think that someone (who? the media? government? parents?) should now step up and not let this incident go to waste as a way to turn young people off of drugs. Otherwise these two deaths (and countless others) will be an even bigger waste than they already are.

I bid ye good day.

Posts about inane subjects plus the relationship saga and Blue soup’s likely to be introduced “Guide to failing in PR work” will resume soon.