THE killer of pop star Kirsty MacColl will never be brought to justice, says her stepmother.
Kirsty, famous for hits such as Fairytale Of New York and A New England, died in 2000 at the age of 41 when hit by a powerboat while diving with her sons, then aged 13 and 15, off the coast of Mexico.
The vessel, moving fast and illegally in a designated diving area, was controlled by Guillermo Gonzalez Nova, multimillionaire president of a Mexican supermarket chain, but an employee of his took the blame and got fined a mere 2240 US dollars in lieu of a 34 month jail sentence.
Kirsty’s mother Jean Newlove, who led the Justice For Kirsty campaign, died in 2017.
Peggy Seeger, 88, who was married to Kirsty’s dad, singer-songwriter and activist Ewan MacColl, from 1977 until his death in 1989, said: “Kirsty’s death was a complete and utter criminal tragedy.
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“She was a bright light and she was just snuffed out by a man who should never have been there. He tried to shift the responsibility on to someone else.
“It’s like the way our government works in that they say one thing….things happen that are absolutely horrendous and they work their way around it. And that’s what they did.
“Power does that. What it’s done to her sons’ whole lives.”
Asked if there ever will be justice for Kirsty, Peggy said “No. The only person who could have brought them to justice was her mother, and she did try.
“Largely because she’d been married to Ewan for a while, she was politically aware that when these people shut themselves away behind their power you can’t get at them, especially in a foreign country.”
Veteran singer and musician Peggy, who will perform at the Cambridge Folk Festival on July 28, adds of Kirsty: “Ahhhhh. She was my stepdaughter. Sadly we didn’t work together. She was brilliant. She was very versatile. She had wonderful ideas.
“I think she would have flown. But she was terrified of getting up on stage. She conquered it for a while.”
