Police are investigating the source of the ketamine which killed actor Matthew Perry, it has emerged.

Perry, who was best known for playing wise-cracking Chandler Bing in Friends, died at his LA home last October after being found unresponsive in a swimming pool.

A post-mortem found his death was an accident from “the acute effects of ketamine”.

Ketamine is a sedative that can be used as a recreational drug, as well as to treat depression.

Read more: Matthew Perry – A life in pictures

Los Angeles Police Department says it is working with the Drug Enforcement Agency as part of an investigation into why Perry, 54, had so much ketamine in his system at the time of his death.

People close to Perry told investigators that he was undergoing ketamine infusion therapy – an experimental treatment – according to his autopsy.

The medical examiner wrote however that Perry’s last treatment was one and a half weeks before his death and would not explain the levels of ketamine in his blood.

Perry, who was 54, had also drowned in “the heated end of his pool” in what the medical examiner described as a secondary factor in his death.

They added he had “reportedly been clean for 19 months”. Perry regularly spoke about his battle with addiction – including a near-death experience in 2019 after his colon burst as a result of opioid use.

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Perry recalled one instance when fellow Friends star Jennifer Aniston confronted him about being inebriated while filming.

“I know you’re drinking,” he remembered her telling him.

“We can smell it,” she said in what Perry called a “kind of weird but loving way” – adding: “The plural ‘we’ hit me like a sledgehammer.”

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Speaking to NBC’s Today presenter Hoda Kotb on her Making Spaces podcast in March, Perry’s stepfather said the star “felt like he was beating” his battles with addiction.

Keith Morrison, an award-winning correspondent for Dateline NBC, said his stepson “didn’t get to have his third act, and that’s not fair”.

Richard Osman has revealed the final lead character for the forthcoming big screen adaptation of The Thursday Murder Club.

Calender Girls actress Celia Imrie will play retired nurse Joyce Meadowcroft – one of four main characters from the book.

She will star alongside Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan and Ben Kingsley, who Osman announced as cast members last month on his podcast The Rest Is Entertainment.

They will play the roles of Elizabeth Best, Ron Ritchie and Ibrahim Arif respectively.

Speaking on that podcast, Osman had said: “Joyce, we’re still in negotiations but again the name is the one that people most shout at me in the street.”

Making the announcement on X on Tuesday, the Pointless host said he was “thrilled” to add Imrie to the cast.

Chris Columbus – the man behind Home Alone, Mrs Doubtfire and two Harry Potter movies – is set to write and direct the film, which is being produced by Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment.

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The movie is based on Osman’s debut novel of the same name which follows a group of friends in a retirement home who solve cold cases for fun, but become entangled in a real murder.

It is set in a retirement home Cooper’s Chase, in the fictitious village of Fairhaven in Kent.

Osman said the production would take place from “the end of June to September” in the UK.

An adaptation of the novel was first confirmed in 2020 after Amblin Partners secured rights in a competitive auction.

Osman has since written three more books in the series since his fastest-selling adult crime debut, with a fifth due out next year.

Amal Clooney has revealed she was on the panel of international legal experts who recommended seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli and Hamas leaders.

The human rights lawyer, whose husband is actor George Clooney, wrote about assisting with evaluating evidence of suspected war crimes and crimes against humanity in Israel and Gaza, in a post on the couple’s Clooney Foundation for Justice website.

She and other international law experts unanimously agreed to recommend that International Criminal Court (ICC) chief prosecutor Karim Khan seek the arrest warrants.

Mr Khan has alleged Mr Netanyahu, Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant and Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh were responsible for war crimes in both Gaza and Israel.

Mr Netanyahu has said he rejects “with disgust” the prosecutor’s “comparison between democratic Israel and the mass murderers of Hamas”.

Mrs Clooney, who had previously faced criticism online for not speaking out publicly on the war, has now said she joined the panel more than four months ago and supports the “historic step” in seeking the warrants.

“I served on this panel because I believe in the rule of law and the need to protect civilian lives,” she wrote.

“As a human rights lawyer, I will never accept that one child’s life has less value than another’s. I do not accept that any conflict should be beyond the reach of the law, nor that any perpetrator should be above the law.

“So I support the historic step that the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has taken to bring justice to victims of atrocities in Israel and Palestine.”

In a statement on the warrants, Mr Khan said he has reasonable grounds to believe the Hamas leaders “bear criminal responsibility” for “war crimes and crimes against humanity”.

He outlined a list of alleged crimes, including murder, taking hostages and rape and other acts of sexual violence.

On Mr Netanyahu and his defence minister Mr Gallant, Mr Khan said he has reasonable grounds to believe they too “bear criminal responsibility” for “war crimes and crimes against humanity”.

He outlined a list of alleged crimes, including “starvation of civilians” and “intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population”.

In her statement on the panel’s recommendations, Mrs Clooney added that she hoped “witnesses will co-operate with the ongoing investigation” and that “justice will prevail in a region that has already suffered too much”.

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Reacting to the ICC’s decision, Mr Netanyahu said: “With what audacity do you compare Hamas that murdered, burned, butchered, decapitated, raped and kidnapped our brothers and sisters and the IDF soldiers fighting a just war.

“No pressure and no decision in any international forum will prevent us from striking those who seek to destroy us.”

US President Joe Biden said the move by the ICC prosecutor was “outrageous”, adding: “Let me be clear: whatever this prosecutor might imply, there is no equivalence – none – between Israel and Hamas.”

A spokesman for UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said the ICC’s action was “not helpful in relation to reaching a pause in the fighting, getting hostages out or getting humanitarian aid in”.

A panel of three ICC judges must consider Mr Khan’s application, in a process that takes an average of two months.

The court has no means to enforce arrest warrants and its investigation into the Gaza war has long been opposed by the US and Israel.

As Israel is not a member of the ICC, neither Mr Netanyahu nor Mr Gallant would be at immediate risk of arrest should the judges agree to issue warrants, although it could make it difficult for the Israeli leaders to travel abroad.