Marvin speaks of son's lonely death

The former Shadows guitarist, Hank Marvin, talked yesterday for the first time about the lonely death of his alcoholic son. Dean Marvin, 35, who died on 6 January in a London YMCA hostel, had reportedly not seen his father for 10 years.

Dean became estranged from his father, a Jehovah's Witness, before Hank went to live in Australia with his second wife.

Speaking on the This Morning TV show, Hank Marvin said: "He wanted to lead a life with no responsibility where he could drink. If I'd provided finance for him, it would have simply gone on drugs or alcohol. He was an adult. He made a lot of wrong decisions. It's really sad, but that killed him.

"Initially it was a shock and the grief is taking a while to work through but we had no idea of his condition. We knew he was drinking and taking drugs but I didn't realise he was an alcoholic. My daughter told me afterwards he had been in a bad way for 18 months."

"He got involved with people we were unhappy with and warned him against."