BUSTED MATT'S UNCLE DEAD

By THOMAS WHITAKER
Showbiz Reporter

Pop hunk Matt Jay was distraught last night after his uncle was found dead in a grubby caravan.

Matt, guitarist with chart-topping boy band Busted, was left “devastated” by news of Nigel Willis’s tragic end.

Schizophrenic Nigel, 44, had lain undiscovered for eight weeks in the rundown, litter-strewn van in a retired doctor’s garden.

The doctor was unaware anyone had been living inside — and Nigel’s body was found by health officials alerted by neighbours complaining about the smell.

Matt, 20, currently in Japan with band pals Charlie Simpson, 17, and James Bourne, 19, was told about the death by his dad Kevin.

His great aunt Shirley Huff said: “Matt and the whole family are heartbroken. Nigel had been a bit of a dropout for 20 years. He needed care which he didn’t get.

“He was last seen by the family a few months ago sleeping on a bench at a railway station.”

The van is owned by former neuro psychiatrist, Edmund Harvey Smith, 73, of Kingston upon Thames, Surrey. He said: “I didn’t know there was a squatter in there. It is pretty nasty.”

Neighbour Alberto Kossatz, 31, “I had been complaining about the smell since May. The doctor said it was caused by a dead animal.”

A post-mortem failed to establish the cause of Nigel’s death but there were signs it might have been drink or drug-related.

Busted reached No1 earlier this year with You Said No and also had hits with What I Go To School For and Year 3000.