Children's TV star held on suspicion of murder after fiancee

[conspiracy analyst]

If they aren't alcoholics selling lies to the media about being ...homeless, they are servicing each other with class A drugs then being accused of murder.

The state of modern 'journalism' today...


Children's TV star held on suspicion of murder after fiancee is found dead


· Mark Speight released on bail after questioning
· Death of Natasha Collins unexplained, say police

Owen Gibson, media correspondent
Saturday January 5, 2008
The Guardian

A BBC children's television presenter was released on bail yesterday after being arrested on suspicion of murder following the sudden death of his fiancee.

Mark Speight, who fronts the long-running children's art show SMart, was arrested on Thursday after Natasha Collins, also a presenter and an actor, was found dead in the bath at their home in St John's Wood, north-west London.

Police are treating the death as "unexplained". Speight, 42, was arrested on suspicion of murder and supplying class A drugs, and was released on bail early yesterday.

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The presenter, who first found fame on the ITV Saturday morning show Scratchy & Co, said he was "distraught" and had nothing to do with his girlfriend's death.

A statement from his solicitors, Sabir Selby, said: "At the moment no one knows what happened. Mark found her body in the bathroom and immediately called an ambulance and the police. Mark was the only other person present in the flat and has therefore been questioned by police as a matter of course. He is assisting police with their inquiries."

The couple had worked together on the children's show See It Saw It. Collins, 31, had small acting roles in the US mini-series The Tenth Kingdom and the ITV drama Real Women.

A Scotland Yard spokesman said police were called to a residential address in St John's Wood on Thursday afternoon. "The woman, aged 31, was pronounced dead at the scene," he said. "A man in his 40s was arrested at the scene. He has been bailed to return to a central London police station on a date in early February."

A postmortem examination began yesterday.

The statement from Speight's solicitors added: "Mark is absolutely distraught at the loss of Natasha and hopes that everyone will appreciate what a very sad time this is for both Mark and Natasha's family."

In a statement issued by police last night, Natasha's mother, Carmen Collins, said: "We are all absolutely distraught over the death of Natasha. She was our loving, caring daughter who was always full of life. This is a very emotional time for us as a family. We ask simply to be allowed to grieve at this time."

Speight, who has a degree in commercial and graphic art, had appeared in a string of other hit children's shows on the BBC and ITV, including Beat the Cyborgs, On Your Marks and Name That Toon. He recently branched out with regular appearances on BBC1's Heaven and Earth, Rolf on Art and ITV1's This Morning.

He played a role in a series of popular BBC1 live events in which the entertainer Rolf Harris created large-scale pieces of public art in Trafalgar Square and in the grounds of Edinburgh Castle.

"My mum was an art teacher and my grandad was a painter," Speight said in a recent interview. "I really wanted to be a cartoonist and just stumbled into TV. I was helping with a TV set and got wind of an audition for SMart."

The BBC yesterday cancelled repeats of the programme, which is now in its 14th year, until further notice. Repeats of the spinoff programme SMarteenies were also cancelled.

The HandE casting agency, which represented Collins, said: "We are shocked and devastated that Natasha has passed away ... she was a wonderful, confident young lady and her beauty was inside and out."

Clive Doig, managing director of the independent TV production company Brechin, which made See It Saw It for three years from 1998, said: "She was a very good young actress ... I'm shocked to hear of her death. It's terribly sad."

Speight also tours the country with his Speight of the Art children's workshops and this Christmas had been in pantomime as Buttons in Cinderella, in Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire.

His mother, Jacqueline, said he had been seeing Collins for some time. "I'd met Tash a couple of times and she seemed a lovely girl, really nice, so I was horrified to hear the news that she had died suddenly."

The death of Collins comes days after that of the former Radio 1 DJ Kevin Greening. An inquest began yesterday. On Monday detectives arrested a man in his 50s on suspicion of supplying class A drugs. The man has been bailed to return in March on suspicion of possessing class A drugs with intent to supply.