Pubdate: Tue, 15 Aug 2000
Source: Guardian, The (UK)
Copyright: 2000 Guardian Newspapers Limited
Contact:  75 Farringdon Road, London EC1R 3ER, England
Fax: +44-171-837 4530
Website: http://www.newsunlimited.co.uk/guardian/
Forum:
http://www.newsunlimited.co.uk/BBS/News/0,2161,Latest|Topics|3,00.html
Section: Special report: drugs in Britain
Author: Alan Travis, home affairs editor 

HOW POLICE MADE STONES DRUG CHARGES STICK

The police luridly played up the image of Marianne Faithfull as "a
girl" wearing nothing but a fur rug which she deliberately "let fall"
from time to time in their infamous 1967 drugs raid on the Rolling
Stones because they lacked any real evidence against Mick Jagger and
Keith Richards, recently released police and court records confirm.

The official files in the public record office and the West Sussex
county archives show how far the police were prepared to "fit up" the
Rolling Stones after their bungled drugs raid on a weekend house party
at Redlands, Richards' Sussex country home, on a tip-off from the News
of the World.

The case papers demonstrate that once the police realised they did not 
have enough evidence to secure drugs convictions against the rock 
stars, they set about putting the most lurid possible "spin" on the 
scene they did encounter when 18 officers poured into the West 
Wittering house in February 1967.  

Police officers testified that they "noticed an unusual smell" which 
"was not burning wood" and that they found Faithfull, who was referred 
to only as Miss X at the trial, in a "merry mood'" sitting "on a settee 
wrapped in a fur rug with several male persons" and that she "let it 
fall from her shoulders from time to time".  

The suggestion that her behaviour might be linked to smoking cannabis 
was backed up by a Scotland Yard drug squad detective who was drafted 
in to testify that the smell of joss sticks and incense was used by 
cannabis smokers to hide the smell of the drug. "I know the smell of 
cannabis. I liken the smell to burning hay and I would describe it as a 
strong picric [acid] smell," Det Insp John Lynch testified.  

It was enough to persuade Judge Leslie Block at the West Sussex
quarter session to sentence Keith Richards to 12 months in prison and
Mick Jagger to three months.

The sentences caused a national outcry and were portrayed as an 
establishment attempt to crucify Britain's most insolent rock band. 
Even the Times condemned the prison sentences in a leader that quoted 
William Blake's Who Breaks a Butterfly on a Wheel.  

Eventually Lord Parker, the lord chief justice, quashed the jail 
sentences saying no proper evidence of hashish smoking had been found 
during the raid.  
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