Now, I am rushing writing my stories for the CMU Daily this morning because I've got a law exam this morning (no, really) and among the topics to be tested is defamation. So there would be a certain irony if in my haste I was to defame poor old Brian Harvey, formerly of East 17 - so I'm going to tread carefully here and stress that there is a lot of rumour and gossip in this story, none of which has been verified.
Harvey is reportedly critically ill in hospital this morning after being crushed by his own car. Details of the incident, which seemingly occurred early yesterday morning, are unclear, though a police spokesman told the BBC: "The circumstances of the collision are being investigated but at this early stage we believe the man may have fallen from the driver's side of [his] Mercedes convertible while reversing from an access road into the street."
The ambiguity of the case has led to gossip (have we stressed that this is unverified gossip?) that the incident was a suicide attempt on the part of the depressive former pop star. That follows reports back in Apr that the singer had taken an overdose in another suicide attempt - reports strongly denied by his management who said that, while Harvey has been suffering from depression, that incident related to a friend who overreacted after the former pop star had taken "a couple of sleeping pills". There were further reports that Harvey had been taken to hospital after collapsing at his home last week, though no consensus on what caused his collapse.
Harvey's people are yet to comment on the latest incident in his life so, and I can't stress this enough, most of this is unverified gossip.