The world of celebrity isn’t something I usually take part in. Whilst I do sometimes dabble in the odd fly-on-the-wall documentary following the c-lists as they go about their daily lives, I just don’t really care about the every day dramas of anyone who’s anyone.

But when I read that TV presenter Mark Speight had taken his own life I was genuinely saddened. We’d followed the story here at the Independent since his disappearance, as originally he was last seen being dropped off at Wood Green underground station. Every day I waited for an update to add to the story — hoping there would be some good news but expecting the inevitable.

I know I had never met Mark and I’ve never really followed his career on TV, but his story got to me from day one. Here was a hugely successful man, popular in his field of children’s entertainment and seemingly happy in a relationship with his live-in girlfriend. And then it all went wrong.

In January Natasha Collins’ body was found by Mark at their St Johns Wood flat, burnt from a scalding bath and full of drugs and alcohol the pair had taken together hours earlier.

Last week, presumably out of sheer despair for what had happened and the woman he had lost, Mark ended his life by hanging himself at London’s Paddington Station.

It was clearly planned. Attached to his body was a suicide note and another was found at the couple’s home. But how desperate must be have been to end it all?

There are some life experiences that seem unimaginably hard to deal with, and being at such a low ebb as to consider taking your life is something I cannot comprehend.

I know that fingers are being pointed as people try and lay the blame firmly on someone’s shoulders. Should the police have done more after seeing Mark on the day he went missing? Should Mark’s friends have pulled the plug on his drug habit months or years earlier? Should social services have stepped in and taken the control away from Mark while he was so fragile?

Who knows, but now it does not matter. And while I would never advocate drug-taking there has to be a point at which this story stops being about the negative effects of drugs and starts just being about the tragic reality of two people’s lives.

Ultimately Mark and Natasha’s families are left to grieve all over again so it’s time to ignore his celebrity status and respect their right to absolute privacy.