It is a picture that will shock music fans around the world: the late British pop star Liam Payne being manhandled through a hotel lobby by three men, just minutes before his fatal fall from a third-floor balcony.

The tragic image, which has been given to the Daily Mail, was taken from CCTV footage recorded inside the CasaSur Palermo Hotel in Buenos Aires where Payne was staying at the time of his death on October 16.

High on drugs, Payne, whose face we have chosen to obscure, appears to have been picked up by the trio of hotel employees – he had, according to one witness, been ‘convulsing’ on the lobby floor. He was taken, via the elevator, back to his third-floor suite.

The question is, why did they move him at all, if he was so ill? Why did the hotel not call an ambulance straight away?

The timestamp on the still image shows 16:54:48. Bizarrely, however, a second picture taken from CCTV outside Liam’s room shows the three employees and Payne at 16:54:37. In other words, apparently eleven seconds before they were in the lobby.

The journey from the lobby to the third floor takes at least 90 seconds, according to one guest. Clearly at least one of the timestamps is incorrect.

The late British pop star Liam Payne is manhandled through the CasaSur Palermo Hotel lobby by three men, just minutes before his fatal fall from a third-floor balcony. One witness claimed he had been ‘convulsing’ on the floor

He was taken, via the elevator, back to his third-floor suite. The tragic footage given to the Daily Mail was taken from CCTV recorded inside the hotel in Buenos Aires

This picture outside Liam’s room shows the three employees and Payne at 16:54:37. In other words, apparently eleven seconds before they were in the lobby. The journey from the lobby to the third floor takes at least 90 seconds, according to one guest. Clearly at least one of the timestamps is incorrect

What we know for certain is that shortly after 17:00, Payne fell 13 metres from the balcony of his room into the hotel’s inner courtyard. He died instantaneously.

At 17:11, an ambulance arrived and certified the singer’s death. A subsequent autopsy found Payne had suffered ‘multiple traumas’ causing ‘internal and external bleeding.’ The toxicology report found traces of ‘alcohol, cocaine and prescription antidepressant.’

Just days after Payne’s funeral, which took place on Wednesday at St Mary’s Church in Amersham, Buckinghamshire, the images perhaps offer a somewhat clearer picture of what happened leading up to the tragic accident. They also raise two serious questions.

To repeat, the first is why would hotel staff – who expressed concern in their call to the emergency services that Payne could come to serious harm on his suite’s balcony – take the intoxicated singer up to his room and leave him there alone?

And second, for reasons I will explain, did Liam fall from the balcony while attempting to leave the hotel undetected – a trick he had been pulling since his days in One Direction and which he had repeated just a month previously to evade a concerned bodyguard in Florida?

If the CCTV timestamp is accurate, the sequence of events begins at 15:53 on October 16 when Liam enters the hotel with his friend, the Argentine-American businessman Roger Nores.

Liam is at this point wearing a black cap – which he donned to avoid being recognised by his legions of Latin American fans – and carrying a small bag containing his personal belongings.

The star appears in good spirits and chats with fans in the lobby before heading up to his room with Nores shortly after 16:00.

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