George michael has just been let off going to prison too - he got 100 hours community service:
George Michael was today sentenced to 100 hours community service and disqualified from driving for two years today after admitting to driving while unfit, freeing him to play two high-profile concerts this weekend.
The star had admitted the offence at an earlier hearing at Brent Magistrates’ Court, claiming that he was guilty due to “tiredness and prescribed drugs”.
Andrew Torrington, for the prosecution, told the court that Michael was found slumped at the wheel of his Mercedes last October, after witnesses observed the vehicle weaving into the wrong side of the road at around five to ten miles an hour in the early hours of the morning.
He had a cocktail of drugs in his system, including cannabis and the illegal dance club drug GHB - a class C substance.
George Michael drove after taking drugs
Outside the court after sentence was passed, the singer criticised media coverage which he claimed had focused on the allegations of illegal drugs.
"Instead I have been sentenced almost entirely on the basis of unfitness to drive through tiredness and prescription medicines, which I entirely accept responsibility for," said Michael, who is set to star in the first concert at the rebuilt Wembley stadium on Saturday and Sunday nights.
"I am glad to put this behind me and am now off to do the biggest show of my life".
Prosecutors told the court that tests showed a therapeutic quantity of an anti-depressant in the singer’s system, as well as the GHB. Michael’s defence counsel maintained that GHB could be present in the blood without any illegal substances having been taken.
Michael, real name George Panayiotou, told the court today that he was ashamed of what he had done because of the danger posed to other people.
Dressed in a dark suit and black T-shirt, he told the court: “I was ashamed I had done something really wrong in putting other people at risk.”
Witnesses saw him stop at traffic lights and remain stationary through several changes of the lights before pulling off in a way they thought might cause an accident.
The witnesses “described his behaviour as being bewildered, frightened, confused and apparently under the influence, as they described it, of drugs,” when they approached the car, he told the court.
Brian Spiro, for the defence, said that Michael had returned from a concert in Paris, was very tired and had taken various medications including a sleeping pill.
He had then been given a DVD of his most recent concert and had attempted to drive to another home he owned in north London to watch it as the machine where he was was broken.
Mr Spiro told the court: “He now fully accepts to have got into the car on that occasion, given his tiredness, given the medication he had been given was the wrong, improper thing to do.”
District Judge Katherine Marshall told the singer he must carry out 100 hours of community service over the next 12 months, and banned him from driving for two years.
Source:
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/article1904474.ece