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Mark Warwick Fordham Speight (6 August 1965 – April 2008) was a British TV presenter, best known for presenting the long-running BBC children's art programmes SMart and SMarteenies.

In January 2008 Speight's fiancée and former colleague, Natasha Collins, died at their London flat and he was initially arrested but released without charge. In April, Speight was reported missing and found hanged a few days later.

Biography

Speight was born on 6 August 1965, and grew up in Wolverhampton. He attended the independent school Tettenhall College, before moving to state comprehensive Regis School (now King's School) at the age of 12. Speight said that he did "very badly" at school due to bullying, and that the "daily ordeal for two years" forced him to become the class joker. Speight left aged 16 and went on to attend Bilston art school.

Career

After a series of jobs, he took a degree in commercial and graphic art. Intending to become a cartoonist, Speight's entry into television presenting was "a happy accident". While working on the set of a television production, he heard about auditions for children's television programme SMart. He went on to present SMart with various co-presenters from its start in 1994 until 2008. Speight became close friends with co-presenter Jay Burridge, with whom he conceived all of the art content for each edition; 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." With Burridge and Kirsten O'Brien, Speight presented the spin-off shows SMarteenies and Smart on the Road. He achieved further fame while starring in BAFTA-nominated ITV Saturday morning show Scratchy & Co. in the mid 1990s.

Speight worked on numerous other shows, ranging from children's television to adult factual programmes. He played the Abominable No Man in Timmy Mallett's Timmy Towers and hosted Beat the Cyborgs, See It Saw It and, for Discovery Kids, History Busters, which won a Royal Television Society Award. He also made guest appearances on Blue Peter, The Saturday Show, This Morning and The Heaven and Earth Show, and was also a contestant in ITV's Celebrity Wrestling.

Speight regularly toured with Speight of the Art, art workshops he ran for children, and was involved in charity work, notably as President of the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign's Young Pavement Artists Competition. During the Christmas period, he usually became involved in pantomime, and performed in Cinderella at the Watersmeet, Rickmansworth in December 2007.

Personal life

Having met her on the set of See It, Saw It, Speight began dating Natasha Collins after she was involved in a car accident in 2000. They became engaged in Barbados in 2005.

Arrest and disappearance

On the morning of 3 January 2008, Speight called emergency services having discovered Collins' body in the bath of their London flat. Speight told police that he and Collins had spent the previous evening "partying" and had taken cocaine and sleeping pills, wine and vodka. Speight was subsequently arrested on suspicion of murder and of supplying class A drugs, and released on bail. An inquest into the death, which opened on 8 January 2008, heard that the death was not thought to be suspicious but should be "subject to further investigation". At that point, police were awaiting results of toxicology tests after a postmortem examination had proved inconclusive. Speight denied any involvement with Collins' death, and on 19 March 2008 it was reported that no further action would be taken by the police. The BBC cancelled repeat broadcasts of SMart and SMarteenies until further notice, and on 28 February 2008 Speight announced he was quitting the programme Smart, because the "tragic loss" of Collins had left him unable to continue with the show.

In April 2008, the coroner recorded a verdict of death by misadventure in relation to Natasha Collins. 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. The pathologist gave the cause of death as cocaine toxicity and immersion in hot water. 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.

On 8 April 2008, Speight was reported missing by family and friends after failing to attend a meeting on the afternoon of 7 April. He had been dropped off at Wood Green tube station, London in the morning, and last seen in the afternoon boarding a southbound Bakerloo line train from Queen's Park station. On 8 April, his mother and the mother of Natasha Collins made a public appeal in which they urged him to make contact. Speight's father also appealed for him to get in touch. Police confirmed that they had spoken to Speight on the day of his disappearance, saying he appeared "distracted". Speight reportedly refused all offers of help when approached by police.

Death

On 13 April 2008, Speight's body was discovered hanging from the roof of MacMillan House, adjacent to Paddington Station in London. The discovery was made by railway workers at 10:00am, and was confirmed to be Speight's body on April 14 2008 by the British Transport Police. An inquest into the death opened on 16 April 2008 and confirmed the cause of death as hanging; it was also disclosed that suicide notes had been found on the body and at Speight's home. The inquest was adjourned until May 14 2008.

References

1. ^ Stephen Armstrong (2008-04-14). "Mark Speight". The Guardian. Retrieved 2008-04-18. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
2. "Mark Speight". The Daily Telegraph. 2008-04-13. Retrieved 2008-04-13. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
3. ^ "Obituary: Mark Speight". BBC News Online. 2008-04-14. Retrieved 2008-04-14. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
4. ^ Parkes, Diane (2005-09-16). "Telly star Mark a victim of bullies". icBirmingham. Midland Newspapers. Retrieved 2008-01-08. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
5. ^ Jay Burridge (2008-04-18). "Mark and me". The Guardian. Retrieved 2008-04-18. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
6. Stratton, Allegra (2008-01-04). "BBC star bailed after death of girlfriend". Guardian Unlimited. Guardian News and Media. Retrieved 2008-01-05. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
7. "RTS Awards - the winners". Manchester Evening News. M.E.N. media. 2003-11-17. Retrieved 2008-01-05.
8. Bishop, Tom (2005-04-14). "ITV wrestles for Saturday ratings". BBC News. BBC. Retrieved 2008-01-04.
9. "Statement on Mark Speight" (Press release). Muscular Dystrophy Campaign. 2008-04-14. Retrieved 2008-04-16.
10. Dakin, Melanie (2007-12-06). "CBBC SMart host Mark Speight draws the crowds at The Watersmeet". Bucks Free Press. Newsquest Media Group. Retrieved 2008-01-04. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
11. ^ "Fiancee death presenter missing". BBC News Online. 2008-04-08. Retrieved 2008-04-08. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
12. ^ "TV star Mark Speight 'missing' after fiancee Natasha Collins' inquest". The Times. 2008-04-08. Retrieved 2008-04-13. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
13. "Presenter death 'not suspicious'". BBC News Online. 2008-01-08. Retrieved 2008-01-08. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
14. ^ Ryan, Rosalind (2008-01-07). "Postmortem on Speight's fiancee inconclusive'". Guardian Unlimited. Guardian News and Media. Retrieved 2008-01-07.
15. "CBBC star 'distraught' over death". BBC News Online. 2008-01-04. Retrieved 2008-01-04. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
16. ^ "Actress died after taking drugs". BBC News Online. 2008-04-02. Retrieved 2008-04-13. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
17. "CBBC star leaves show over death". BBC News Online. 2008-02-28. Retrieved 2008-02-29. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
18. "TV presenter 'had memorial plans'". BBC News Online. 2008-04-11. Retrieved 2008-04-11. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
19. "Family plea to missing presenter". BBC News Online. 2008-04-08. Retrieved 2008-04-08. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
20. "Missing star told 'don't give up'". BBC News Online. 2008-04-12. Retrieved 2008-04-13. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
21. "Police spoke to missing presenter". BBC News Online. 2008-04-09. Retrieved 2008-04-12. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
22. "TV host Speight was found hanged". BBC News Online. 2008-04-14. Retrieved 2008-04-14. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
23. "TV presenter left suicide notes". Retrieved 2008-04-16.

External links

• Mark Speight at Billy Marsh Associates
• Please use a more specific IMDb template. See the documentation for available templates.
• Mark Speight at TV.com

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• Recent deaths
• 1965 births
• 2008 deaths
• British television presenters
• People from Wiltshire
• People from Wolverhampton
• Suicides by hanging
• Television personalities who committed suicide