John Lennon: I was there the day he died

Forty years ago, on 8 December 1980, the former Beatle John Lennon was shot dead as he returned to his home at the Dakota apartment building in New York. The BBC's Tom Brook was the first British journalist to report live from the scene. Here he recounts how Lennon's death has haunted him ever since.

In New York as I go about my daily routines I am constantly reminded of John Lennon, of both his life - and death.

I now live just four blocks from the Dakota - I go past the building virtually every day and whenever I go to my gym on West 63rd Street it is part of a complex which also houses a hotel - the very hotel Lennon's killer, Mark David Chapman, stayed in on his first night in New York.