A man who went to school with Kate Middleton and Prince William at the University of St. Andrews has died in a tragic incident. As The Daily Mail reported, socialite Ben Duncan died on Thursday after falling from a bar on the rooftop of a swanky West End hotel. Ben, who is known for appearing in TV shows including a 2010 stint on the UK version of Big Brother, was just 45 years old.
Ben fell seven stories (or about 100 feet) from the rooftop bar of Trafalgar St James hotel in London, and was found dead by police afterwards in Spring Gardens off of Trafalgar Square.
“Officers responded to concerns for a man on the roof of a building in Cockspur Street, Westminster at 23:02 hours on Thursday, 30 October,” a police spokesperson told the Daily Mail. “The man sadly fell from height. Despite the best efforts from the London Ambulance service, he was sadly pronounced dead at the scene. His death is unexpected but non-suspicious.”
A London Ambulance spokesperson also issued a statement on their response to the emergency, saying, “We were called at 10:59pm on Thursday 30 October to reports of an incident on Spring Gardens, City of Westminster. We sent resources to the scene, including an ambulance crew, an incident response officer, paramedics in fast response cars and paramedics from our hazardous area response team (HART). We also dispatched a trauma team in a car from London’s Air Ambulance. Very sadly, despite the best efforts of our crews, a man was pronounced dead at the scene.”
Though Will and Kate haven’t issued a statement on their former classmate’s death yet, plenty of others have shared posts on social media mourning the loss of their friend, including British TV broadcaster Mike Hollingsworth, who paid tribute to him on Facebook.
“My dear, dear friend Benjamin (Ben) Duncan has left us,” Mike wrote. “He lived life as a Peter Pan, the boy who never grew up. He will be sorely missed by his many, many friends who grew to love his charm, his wit, his infectious laugh and his innate sense of style. The world is a poorer place for his passing.”
According to the Daily Mail, Ben once spoke of Will and Kate back in 2010.
“Because we’d had Will and Kate in our midst we had royal protection officers swarming the place,” he said at the time. “We knew that they had hit it off and we knew that something was happening, but they were just left alone to get on with it.”
