MacColl inquiry statement 'soon'

By Chris Heard
BBC News Online entertainment staff

MacColl had two sons with former husband Steve Lillywhite

The mother of late pop singer Kirsty MacColl has said she expects to make an announcement soon on a fresh inquiry into her daughter's death in Mexico.

MacColl, 41, died when she was hit by a speedboat while diving with her sons on holiday off Cozumel island in 2000.

A deckhand was found guilty of homicide but MacColl's mother Jean Newlove says there is evidence he was not driving.

She said she hoped to make a further statement within the next week or so on her campaign to re-open the case.

"There are developments coming through now," Ms Newlove, 81, told BBC News Online. "News is trickling through, but certainly within about 10 days we will make an announcement."

Ms Newlove will help to launch the Justice For Kirsty documentary

Details are expected to coincide with the launch of a one-hour documentary about Ms Newlove's fight for what she says is "the truth" in the case.

The BBC Four film on her Justice For Kirsty campaign is being unveiled at Edinburgh Television Festival on 27 August.

Ms Newlove, a choreographer and teacher, will attend the opening along with BBC producer Olivia Lichtenstein.

'New evidence'

Private investigators hired by Ms Newlove say they have new evidence that disputes who was driving the boat in December 2000.

Juan Jose Cem Yam was found guilty of negligent homicide in March last year. He was fined £61 by a Mexican court and ordered to pay £1,450 in damages to MacColl's two sons, Jamie and Louis, who witnessed her death.

MacColl was a popular figure in the music industry

MacColl, daughter of folk singer Ewan MacColl, was best known for her duet with The Pogues' Shane MacGowan on the 1987 Christmas hit Fairytale of New York.

Aged 17 she wrote and recorded her first single, They Don't Know, a later hit for Tracy Ullman. She also had hits with Days, A New England and There's a Guy Works Down the Chip Shop Swears He's Elvis.

Described by Morrissey as "a supreme original", MacColl collaborated with artists such as Billy Bragg, Bono, Johnny Marr and Keith Richards.

At the time of her death she was heavily influenced by the Latin music she had heard on her trips to South and Central America, and was widely believed to be reaching her prime as an artist.