The ailing father of a man whose body was found in entertainer Michael Barrymore’s swimming pool more than 20 years ago says he can rest in peace knowing that he has done his best for his son.

Terry Lubbock, who earlier this year said he had terminal cancer, says he thinks the truth about the death of his son Stuart will come out.

Stuart Lubbock, 31, died following a party at Mr Barrymore’s then-home in Roydon, Essex, on March 31 2001.

His father has never stopped campaigning for justice.

“I have done my best now for my son,” Mr Lubbock, a 76-year-old retired toolmaker from Harlow, Essex, told the PA news agency.

“I can rest in peace now.

“I think the truth will come out.”

He added: “My body is going down, and my mind, and I am starting to forget things.”

In February, Mr Lubbock said doctors had told him that he had months to live.

He said all he lived for was to get “justice for Stuart”, but accepts he may never get the answers he wants.

In January he had called for a fresh inquest, and said he thought information must now have emerged which justified a fresh inquiry by a coroner.

A coroner recorded an open verdict after an inquest in 2002 and, three years ago, the then-attorney general, Jeremy Wright, refused to give Mr Lubbock the go-ahead to make an application to the High Court for a second inquest.

But Mr Lubbock says a fresh Essex Police appeal, which coincided with the broadcast of a Channel 4 documentary Barrymore: The Body In The Pool, in February 2020, had changed the landscape.

No-one has been charged with any offence in relation to Stuart Lubbock’s death.

Mr Barrymore, now 69, was arrested in 2007 but never charged with any offence.

In March, Mr Barrymore spoke to ITV’s Good Morning Britain programme and described the Channel 4 documentary as “vile and vicious”.

Mr Barrymore said nobody who was at his house on the night of Stuart Lubbock’s death knew what happened.

Asked if he had anything fresh to offer the police, he replied: “I honestly wish I did.”

He said he had been “through 20 years of hell”.

Essex Police have said their investigation is continuing.

In March, police arrested a 50-year-old man on suspicion of the murder and indecent assault of Stuart Lubbock. The man, who was not named by police, was subsequently released under investigation.

Police say they have prepared a file for consideration by the Crown Prosecution Service following a “substantial and detailed investigation”.