Barrymore perjury claim probe

Michael Barrymore faces a fresh police investigation, this time for perjury after being accused of lying at the inquest of the man found floating in his swimming pool.

Coroner Caroline Beasley-Murray has referred the allegation to Essex police for investigation following last week's inquest on Stuart Lubbock.

The inquiry could lead to a criminal trial and the threat of prison for the gay entertainer.

The referral is the second blow for Barrymore today. BBC Worldwide announced its £500,000 controversial autobiography of the TV star is being "postponed indefinitely".

The perjury investigation centres on an apparently innocuous statement Barrymore made on Friday at Mr Lubbock's inquest in Epping.

Describing the moment when he and two friends discovered the 31-year-old meat factory supervisor, Barrymore said "I can't swim", apparently to explain why one of the friends jumped into the pool at his £2million home and not himself.

According to Barrymore's ex-wife and a man he rescued from drowning nearly 30 years ago, he can swim perfectly well. Essex police had hinted that because the outcome of the inquest - an open verdict - did not hinge on the "can't swim" statement, perjury charges were unlikely. But now they appear to have been spurred into action by the coroner.

Barrymore's refusal at the inquest to answer a series of questions about drug-taking at his home on the night Mr Lubbock died, and his failure to offer an explanation for the appalling injuries he suffered in a serious sexual assault, created a climate in which publication of the autobiography could only damage the BBC and it now looks as if the book will never appear.

During the inquest, Barrymore invoked Coroner's Rule 22, allowing him to refuse to answer questions that might incriminate him.

The 50-year-old refused five times to answer questions about drug-taking at his home, although he denied rubbing cocaine into Mr Lubbock's gums and said he did not jump in to pull him out because he could not swim.

The television presenter's former wife Cheryl Barrymore later contacted lawyers representing the Lubbock family with claims that the star could swim, and that he had rubbed cocaine into the gums of other people as well as himself.

And another man has come forward to say he was rescued from a holiday camp swimming pool by the star.

The inquest heard how high levels of alcohol and drugs including ecstasy and cocaine were found in Lubbock's system, as well as injuries likely to have resulted from a serious sexual assault.

He had attended the party after meeting Barrymore in a Harlow nightclub.

Police and the Essex coroner criticised the way both Barrymore and his guests failed to explain what happened to Mr Lubbock that night. The five-day inquest heard that Mr Lubbock had drunk the equivalent of nine pints of beer as well as the ecstasy and cocaine on the night he died. He was so intoxicated with this cocktail of drink and drugs that he would have been incapable of defending himself if he had been subjected to a sex assault.

Of the four pathologists who gave evidence, only one thought that Mr Lubbock had died from drowning. The other three said the cause of death was " unascertainable" but noted the severe anal injuries.

Barrymore accused the press of misreporting the inquest but his own refusal to answer questions severely damaged his credibility.

Mr Lubbock's father Terry said yesterday: "Barrymore knows more about what happened that night than he has told the world so far.

"His refusal to answer questions was a desperate and self-serving attempt to save his career."

His girlfriend Claire Wicks said: "To listen to the evidence you would think that all these people were at a different party."