Singer's suicide at music festival

THE lead singer of a British pop band has died during a music festival in Belgium, the Foreign Office confirmed yesterday.

Charles Haddon, frontman of electro-pop trio Ou Est Le Swimming Pool, leapt to his death from a telecommunications mast behind the main stage at the Pukkelpop festival late on Friday night, Belgian police said. The 22-year-old had performed with his band at the three-day festival in Hasselt, shortly before climbing the mast. Police are treating the death as suicide.

Festival organisers said Haddon's family had been informed. In a website statement, they said: "After performing with his band Ou Est Le Swimming Pool, singer Charles Haddon decided to take his own life."

Ou Est Le Swimming Pool, who are based in Camden, North London, were due to perform at the Frequency Festival in Austria last night and to start a UK headline tour in Cambridge in October.