YESTERDAY’S BUSTS Part 2
As I was cutting the codes out of this second piece from The Guardian sent over by Roger in Scotland, I wondered to myself why I was bothering to post this stuff. Was it an odd forensic nostalgia, or just because recent days have been so depressingly August? Or maybe there is some merit, while dope remains eternally demonized and illegal here in the USA, to remember a nervously naive time when the London authorities through they could stamp out the whole thing by rounding up the obvious celebrities. (Plus hundreds of lesser mortals.)

Sir Mick Jagger may now be a respected knight of the realm, but 35 years ago, when he claimed that detectives had tried to plant drugs on him, police were distinctly unimpressed. Secret files released yesterday to the National Archives show that an internal inquiry by Scotland Yard dismissed the allegations, saying the Rolling Stones singer was caught up in "the world of users of dangerous drugs". Jagger's main witnesses were described as "the dregs of society", while his girlfriend Marianne Faithfull - who was also caught up in the claims - was said to be "most unreliable".The allegations followed a police raid on Jagger's home in London's fashionable Cheyne Walk in Chelsea on 28 May 1969, led by the head of the local drugs squad, Detective Sergeant Robin Constable.
A quantity of cannabis resin was seized by the police. However, the allegation that Sgt Constable had tried to plant some "white powder" on Jagger and then demanded a £1,000 bribe to drop the charges surfaced some weeks later when Jagger and Faithfull were filming in Australia. In the midst of shooting the movie, Faithfull was rushed to hospital in Sydney with a drugs overdose after suffering hallucinations that she was the dead Rolling Stones guitarist Brian Jones. She told the Australian detectives who came to interview her that she "hated coppers" because of her recent experience at the hands of the police in Britain.The Australian police report stated: "She elaborated on this, alleging that her recent arrest in England for 'possession of cannabis' was a result of a trumped-up charge when the chief of the Chelsea drug squad called at the flat she and Jagger occupied and produced some cannabis, stating that he would arrest them if they didn't pay him money."
The claim that Sgt Constable had tried to plant drugs and then attempted to solicit a bribe was to form the basis of the singer's defence when he was charged with cannabis possession at Marlborough Street Magistrates' Court, London. Jagger also went on to allege that the cannabis seized in Cheyne Walk had "shrunk" while in police possession from a half-pound block to just a third of an ounce - the inference being that it was being sold by corrupt officers. Although he was found guilty and fined £200 and ordered to pay 50 guineas in costs, Scotland Yard had little option but to investigate the singer's claims.Jagger enjoyed some high-profile backing from the lawyer, Michael Havers, who went on to become a Conservative Attorney-General, and the Labour MP Tom Driberg.
Nevertheless, the police distaste for the case - particularly some minor drug dealers Jagger and Faithfull called as witnesses - was plain from the outset. "The private persons interviewed during the course of this investigation represent extreme ends of the scale. At one end are public figures, whilst at the other are the dregs of society," noted Commander Robert Huntley, who oversaw the inquiry.In a statement to the police, Jagger described how Sgt Constable had allegedly tried to plant the "white powder" - apparently heroin - in a piece of folded-up paper produced from a box in the house. "I think he put the box down and opened the folded paper. He said: 'Ah, ah, we won't have to look much further'," Jagger said in his statement. "As I got to him he showed me the paper and I saw it contained some white powder.
"I said, 'You bastard, you planted me with heroin'."
Jagger then went on to claim that the officer had tried to solicit a bribe in order to drop the case."He said, 'Don't worry about it, Mick, we can sort it all out'. I said, 'No, we can't'. He said, 'Come on, how much is it worth to you?'
"He seemed to want me to name a figure but I did not want to," Jagger added.
"He twice asked me how much it was worth. He then said 'a thousand', but I never replied. After this he said to me, 'You can have your money back if it doesn't work'."
However, after interviewing all those involved, the Yard's investigating officer, Detective Chief Inspector William Wilson, said that the claims came down to Jagger's word against Sgt Constable's. The Director of Public Prosecutions then ruled no action should be taken against Sgt Constable to end the matter.

The secret word is Horticulture