Doherty bouncer tells of last moments before actor's death

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Dead actor Mark Blanco

Above: Bouncer Johnny Headlock and (below) troubled rocker Pete Doherty

A key eyewitness at the houseparty where a man apparently fell from a top floor balcony after a confrontation with junkie rock star Pete Doherty has denied he was pushed to his death.

Johnny Headlock, Doherty's menacing unofficial minder, has spoken for the first time to say he assumed Mark Blanco walked down four flights of stairs and then slipped and fell over because he was so drunk.

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Headlock, 27, suggested the balcony's safety rail at the East London flat was not too high to rule out Cambridge-educated Blanco accidentally falling over it.

In fact, the balcony's robust safety rail is about 4ft high, and although Blanco is said to be 6ft 5in, he would still have had to either climb over or be helped over it.

But Headlock - real name Jonathan Jeannevol - said that the condition of the body when it was discovered four storeys - 30 feet - below did not suggest that.

He said: 'Mark could have fallen over the balcony, 'cos the balcony's not that high. But he didn't look that bad. 'No one actually knew he'd fallen over the balcony. No one saw it. How do we know?'

Headlock went on: 'We came down and there he was on the floor and the girls were checking him. I assumed he walked down and he just fell over because there was no blood anywhere. I thought he was drunk and he just slipped and fell on the floor.'

Headlock was speaking after a week of intense speculation as to how Mark Blanco ended up dead after a drug-fuelled row with Doherty in the fourth-floor flat of the singer's self-styled literary agent, Paul Roundhill, known as the 'Hotel in the Sky' on Saturday night nine days ago.

Those who were at the party at the one-bedroomed flat insist it was a tragic accident.

But the partygoers' behaviour, including that of Doherty who left the scene before police could question him, has left them with more than a little explaining to do.

According to Headlock, a rather one-sided row erupted between Doherty and Blanco after he turned up uninvited and tried to pursuade the infamous singer to come and see him in his latest play.

Headlock said: 'Mark had a big bottle of wine. He was just swigging it out of the bottle. I've known him two or three months and it was the first time I've seen him as bad as that.

'He kept going on about a play, on and on and on. He kept grabbing Peter and I could see it in his eyes, Pete was going to me, "Johnny, tell him, man".

'I was trying to control him. He's 6ft 5in, he's not small. We kept telling him to shut up and sit down and he wouldn't have it. Paul was trying to distract him. He took off Mark's hat - it was a flat cap - and set it on fire with some lighter fluid.

'Mark didn't even turn round. He just kept going on about how he's got an idea for something. Paul was saying, "Sit down so we can talk".

'So I tried to get him to leave the flat. He pushed me and then Peter sat down and Paul was grabbing him. Paul got him out of the door and said, "Johnny, give us a hand".

'We got him through the door leading to the outside balcony and then we've gone back in. It must have been about five minutes between Mark arriving and Mark leaving.'

Moments later the Blanco was lying on the cobbled street four storeys below, dead.

Doherty and Headlock were still apparently in the flat, with two girls called Kate - neither of them supermodel Kate Moss, Doherty's on-off supermodel girlfriend - and a pole dancer named Naomi.

Headlock says he cannot remember how 30-year-old Blanco's body was discovered.

'I remember someone saying, "Mark's had an accident",' he said. 'We came down and there he was on the floor and the girls were checking him. I assumed he walked down and he just fell over because there was no blood anywhere. I thought he was drunk and he just slipped and fell on the floor.

'Mark could have fallen over the balcony, 'cos the balcony's not that high. But he didn't look that bad. No one actually knew he'd fallen over the balcony. No one saw it. How do we know?'

Detectives say they are keeping an open mind but believe that no 'third party' was involved in the actor's death.

However, Blanco's family remain suspicious and believe it was not suicide and was more than a 'simple accident'.

Headlock says he can't explain Blanco's death. He does, however, confirm that hard drugs were available at the flat. He says Roundhill had been taking crack and admits taking cocaine himself.

 

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