Mark Speight | |
|---|---|
 Speight in 2007 | |
| Born | Mark Warwick Fordham Speight (1965-08-06)6 August 1965 Seisdon, Staffordshire, England |
| Died | 7 April 2008(2008-04-07) (aged 42) Paddington,London, England |
| Cause of death | Suicide by hanging |
| Resting place | St. Michael and All Angels Churchyard, Tettenhall, Metropolitan Borough of Wolverhampton, West Midlands, England |
| Occupations | Broadcaster, artist |
| Years active | 1994–2008 |
| Employer | BBC |
| Television | SMart SMarteenies Scratchy & Co. See It Saw It |
| Partner | Natasha Collins (2005–2008) (her death) |
Mark Warwick Fordham Speight (6 August 1965 – 7 April 2008) was an English television presenter and host of children's art programmeSMart. Speight was born inSeisdon, Staffordshire, and left school at 16 to become a cartoonist. He took a degree incommercial andgraphic art and, while working in televisionset construction, heard of auditions for a new children's art programme. Speight was successful in his audition and became one of the first presenters ofSMart, working on it for 14 years.
Speight was also a presenter onSee It Saw It, where he met his future fiancée, actress and modelNatasha Collins. He took part in live events, such asRolf on Art and his ownSpeight of the Art workshops for children. He was involved in charity work; he became the president of theMuscular Dystrophy Campaign's Young Pavement Artists Competition, and was a spokesperson forChildline.
In January 2008, Speight found Collins's body in the bath of their shared London flat. He was arrested on suspicion of her murder, but not charged with any offence. An inquest later determined that Collins had died of a drug overdose and severe burns from hot water, and it wasdeath by misadventure. In April that year, Speight was reported missing and was later discovered to havehanged himself nearPaddington station. Two suicide notes were discovered, describing how he could no longer live without Collins.
Speight was born inSeisdon, Staffordshire.[1] He grew up in the village ofTettenhall, Wolverhampton[2] and had two siblings, Tina-Louise Richmond (née Speight), and Jason Speight. His father, Oliver Warwick Speight, is a property developer, and his mother, Jacqueline Fordham Speight (née Parker), was an art teacher.[3] Jacqueline died on 5 September 2008, aged 62.[4] Speight attended theprivate schoolTettenhall College for a year, before moving tostate comprehensive Regis School, now known as King's C.E. School, also in Tettenhall, at the age of 12.[5] Speight stated in an interview he was a slow learner at school, with a short attention span, and art was a way for him to communicate.[3] He said he did "very badly" because he was a victim ofbullying, and the "daily ordeal for two years" forced him to become the "class joker". Speight left aged 16 and went on to attendBilston Art School, where he took a degree in commercial and graphic art.[6]
Speight intended to become a cartoonist, but he eventually became a TV presenter following a job painting theset of a television production.[3] He auditioned forSMart and, following a successful interview where he met future co-presenterJay Burridge,[7] he went on to presentSMart from its first edition in 1994.[3] Speight became close friends with Burridge, whose art studio in West London was used to create all of the art content forSMart; Burridge noted: "We would bounce ideas and jokes off each other all day until we had developed an almost telepathically linked knowledge of what made each other laugh."[7] Speight and Burridge were joined by third presenterZoe Ball, who was replaced first byJosie d'Arby, and thenKirsten O'Brien andLizi Botham. With Burridge, O'Brien and Botham, Speight presented the spin-off showsSMart on the Road,SMarteenies, and various live events.[7] He starred in theBAFTA-nominatedITV Saturday morning showScratchy & Co. from 1995 until 1998.[3]
Speight's other work ranged fromchildren's television to adult factual programmes. His children's television credits include playing theAbominable No Man inTimmy Mallett'sTimmy Towers and presentingBeat the Cyborgs,Name That Toon,On Your Marks,Insides Out,Eat Your Words, andHistory Busters, the last of which won aRoyal Television Society Award.[3][6][8] Speight also worked onThis Morning,The Heaven and Earth Show,[3]The Big Breakfast and was a contestant on ITV'sGladiators andCelebrity Wrestling.[6][9] Speight also played the king on children's programmeSee It Saw It, where he metNatasha Collins.[5] Collins was seriously injured after being hit by a car in 2000, and had to leave the programme. Speight began dating her in 2003, and they became engaged inBarbados in 2005. They planned to get married in fancy dress and Speight joked that the wedding might feature monkeys, his favourite animal.[3]
In 2004, Speight participated inRolf Harris'sRolf on Art, for which a giant reproduction ofJohn Constable'sThe Hay Wain was created inTrafalgar Square. In 2005, he was involved in a similar project whereHans Holbein's portrait ofHenry VIII andLeonardo da Vinci'sMona Lisa were both reconstructed, the latter in the grounds ofEdinburgh Castle.[3] Speight had planned a project involving a trip toBorneo in March 2008 to train abusedorangutans not to fight each other, but this never took place.[10] Speight regularly toured withSpeight of the Art, a series of art workshops he ran for children,[3] and during the Christmas period, he performed inpantomime as "Buttons" inCinderella at the Watersmeet,Rickmansworth, in December 2007.[10]
Speight was involved in charity work. He was President of theMuscular Dystrophy Campaign's Young Pavement Artists Competition, originally a one-off, year-long project that ended up lasting eight years, and he was a spokesperson forChildline.[3][11] In 2007, he was the presenter of the Müller Big Art Project forComic Relief in Trafalgar Square.[10]
On the afternoon of 3 January 2008, Speight discoveredNatasha Collins's body in the bath at theirSt John's Wood flat in north-west London and called emergency services. He told police that he and Collins had spent the previous evening drinking wine and vodka, and takingcocaine andsleeping pills.[12] Speight was questioned by police and was arrested on suspicion of murder and of supplyingclass A drugs. He was released on bail until the first week of February.[13] Because of this, theBBC cancelled the Saturday repeat edition ofSMart.[14] Aninquest, which opened on 8 January 2008, heard that the death was not thought to be suspicious but should be "subject to further investigation".[15] At that point, police were awaiting results oftoxicology tests after apostmortem examination was inconclusive.[8] The BBC cancelled repeat broadcasts ofSMart andSMarteenies until further notice.[8] On 28 February, Speight announced he was quitting the show because the death of Collins had left him unable to continue.[16] Speight denied any involvement with Collins's death,[15] and on 19 March, it was reported that the police had decided to take no further action against him.[17]
In April 2008, the coroner recorded a verdict ofdeath by misadventure in relation to Collins. The cause of death was "cocaine toxicity and immersion in hot water", according to the consultant pathologist. The inquest found that she had taken "very significant" amounts of cocaine with sleeping pills and vodka, and that she had suffered 60% burns to her body, including her tongue.[17] The coroner noted that at some stage in the night after both Speight and Collins had gone to bed, Collins got up to have a bath. He said that it was "more likely than not" that a heart problem had caused Collins to fall unconscious while the hot tap was running.[12] Following Collins's death, Speight moved in with Collins's mother.[18]
Speight planned to meet Collins's mother atCovent Garden for coffee on the afternoon of 7 April.[19] He was dropped off atWood Green tube station that morning, but never appeared at the planned meeting.[20] Speight missed an appointment with a counsellor, but this was because of confusion over dates.[21] Two police officers spoke to him, as he appeared vacant, distracted and "deep in thought", but he refused their help. He was captured on CCTV in the afternoon taking money from a cash machine atQueen's Park station, and subsequently boarded a southboundBakerloo line train.[19] He was reported missing the following day by family and friends, and his mother and Collins' mother made a public appeal in which they urged him to make contact.[20] Speight's father also appealed.[22]
On 13 April 2008, Speight's body was discovered hanging from the roof of MacMillan House, adjacent to London'sPaddington Station, hidden from public view.[23] The discovery was made by railway workers at 10:00 am,[24] andBritish Transport Police confirmed that the body was Speight's on 14 April. An inquest into his death opened on 16 April, and a post-mortem confirmed the cause of death as hanging. It was then adjourned until 20 May.[25] The police said Speight may have used a sixth-floor fire exit to get to the area where he was found.[21]
The report of Speight's death on the BBC's children's news programmeNewsround provoked complaints that it upset young viewers. The programme had avoided use of the word "suicide" and had instead reported that "police don't think he was killed by anyone else".[26] Thousands of children wrote poems, painted pictures, or sent letters of condolence to express their grief – "over 7,000 to the BBC and over 15,000 on a website".[27]
Speight's funeral was held on 28 April at St Michael and All Angels' Church in Tettenhall and hundreds went to pay their respects. The service included a performance by the choir from Tettenhall College, Speight's former school, and his coffin was carried out of the church accompanied by the theme tune ofSMart. He was later cremated and his ashes were interred in Tettenhall.[28] In May, the inquest resumed and determined that Speight was deeplydepressed by his fiancée's death. It was also disclosed that suicide notes had been found, one in his left pocket, and one addressed to his parents in his diary at his home. The notes described how he could not "contemplate life without [Collins]".[27] The coroner,Paul Knapman, said there were no suspicious circumstances surrounding the death. In May 2008, Speight's father created a foundation, Speight of the Art, or SP8 of the Art and launched it at a memorial service that took place on what would have been his 43rd birthday, 6 August 2008, atSt Paul's Church in Covent Garden, London.[29]