Bassey: My child didn't kill herself.

SUPERSTAR Dame Shirley Bassey yesterday revealed she did not believe her 22-year-old daughter killed herself.

Samantha Novak was found dead floating in the river Avon in 1985 at the bottom of Bristol's Clifton Suspension Bridge.

Dame Shirley said she was still tormented by the mystery surrounding Samantha's death.

The 72-year-old added after the tragedy she did not want to sing again.

Dame Shirley, who has just dazzled a new generation of fans with a performance at the BBC's electric proms, said: "If she'd jumped off the bridge, all her bones would have been broken.

"But there was not a bone broken. In fact she did not have a mark on her.

"So if anything, I'm suspicious about her death. They said she didn't have a mark on her, and she didn't have any water in her lungs.

"So if somebody's drowning, they gasp, don't they?" Samantha was born out of wedlock during Shirley's first, doomed marriage to her gay manager Kenneth Hume, who died after a 1967 drug overdose.

Samantha spent the evening before her own tragic death drinking in a pub.

Police have suggested it was accidental, even though she had been depressed.

But Dame Shirley, who has sold 135 million records, said: "It's bothered me all this time.

"Because if she didn't have any bruises or broken bones, where did she fall? "And if she didn't fall from the bridge... It's been with me all this time.

CAPTION(S):

Singer Dame Shirley Bassey