Kirsty MacColl's ex says 'no one believes' true killer was caught in speedboat death 'cover up'
The ex-husband of Kirsty MacColl has said that 'no one believes' the person who was blamed for driving the speedboat that killed her was really responsible.
MacColl was a singer who very famously lent her voice to the classic Christmas song 'Fairytale of New York' alongside The Pogues and her ex-husband Steve Lillywhite, who produced the tune, told The Sun hearing the song gave him and his children a 'bittersweet feeling'.
"It’s a bittersweet feeling because when you hear Fairytale, it does give you a good feeling. It makes you think of Christmas and everything," he said.
"And you know, we can’t bring Kirsty or Shane back, but it also reminds us of those people who have passed. They both died near Christmas. That’s the weird thing."
Advert
Shane MacGowan died in November 2023, while MacColl was killed 25 years ago in December 2000 when she was struck by a speedboat while on holiday with her sons.
She had travelled to Cozumel, Mexico, with sons Jamie and Louis and her boyfriend James Knight, and while there she took her sons diving on a reef which ought to have been safe as it was a watercraft-restricted zone.
However, a speedboat raced towards MacColl and her sons just as they surfaced from the water, with the singer pushing her sons out of the way.
She and Jamie were struck by the speedboat's propeller, though thanks to his mum pushing him out of the way Jamie's oxygen tank took most of the hit for him and he only suffered minor injuries.
MacColl was more directly struck by the speedboat, suffering serious injuries to her head and chest and she was killed almost instantly.
The boat was owned by a Mexican businessman named Carlos González Nova, but a man named José Cen Yam claimed he'd been driving the vessel despite not being licensed to do so.
Yam was found guilty of culpable homicide and sentenced to two years and 10 months in prison, but he avoided it by paying a £61 fine, and Lillywhite said 'no one believes' that he was actually driving the boat.
He said: "They said that it was a young kid driving, but no one believes that.
"I think they just didn’t want to have an enormous lawsuit because he was one of the richest guys in Mexico."
There was a campaign organised by MacColl's mother, Jean Newlove, and backed by the likes of U2 attempting to put together judicial appeals, but Nova died in 2009.
Joe Harker