pete doherty (50 posts)

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The third time was apparently the charm for Pete Doherty. At least in terms of punctuality.

After missing his two previous hearings on the matter, the Babyshambles frontman finally appeared in British court today to cop to roughing up a paparazzo.

Officially, Doherty pleaded guilty to a charge of causing criminal damage stemming from an encounter last summer.

The Yeovil Magistrates Court accepted Doherty's plea, with the magistrate ruling that there was a "degree of provocation" in the incident before fining the rocker roughly $2,000.

"Yeah, it was OK today. It should have been sorted out ages ago, to be honest," Doherty said outside the court. "It's been hanging over me a long time."

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UPDATE: Hours after the arrest warrant was issued, Pete Doherty's rep announced that it has been revoked and that a new hearing has been scheduled for July 24.

"The matter has been resolved, and the warrant has been withdrawn," the spokesman told NME.com.

As for whether Doherty will get a stricter punishment for skipping a hearing, it remains to be seen.

"It's not appropriate for me to speculate," a court spokesperson said. "It is for the magistrates to consider, but they will take it into account."

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Pete Doherty's Teflon luck may have finally run out.

Judges at Somerset's Yeovil Magistrate Court in the U.K. have issued an arrest warrant for the Babyshambles frontman after the trouble-prone rocker failed to show up at a hearing for a second time.

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Flynet

Pete Doherty dashes through Heathrow—and it's not because he's being chased!

The one-time Libertines lead guy was rushing through the London airport looking for his Babyshambles bandmates, who apparently were in the bar and were going to miss their flight to Geneva for a gig.

Could this be the start of a new Pete Doherty?

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Pete Doherty was left to go it alone tonight.

Hours after his band Babyshambles decided to skip their Friday night appearance at Britain's Glastonbury Festival, the troubled rocker took the stage alone at midnight, putting to rest reports that Doherty was ready to pack it in in 2008.

The unexpected acoustic solo performance occurred a night after Babyshambles canceled their Thursday show at Norway's Hove Festival.

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Ramey

Looks like the British media weren't the only ones suspicious of Amy Winehouse and Pete Doherty's palling around.

Winehouse's incarcerated hubby, Blake Fielder-Civil, apparently was, too. And as a British court heard today, he was willing to put his money where his suspicions were.

A recently freed inmate from Pentonville Prison, where Fielder-Civil is currently locked up, testified in a separate case that he was offered roughly $40,000 by the Winehouse's jealous mister to "smash to pieces" the Babyshambles rocker.

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Perennial problem child Pete Doherty missed a Paris concert last night and, for a pleasant change, it wasn't his fault.

The Babyshambles frontman was waylaid by a late train.

The high-speed Eurostar, which typically transports travelers from London to Paris via the Chunnel in about two hours, was delayed due to what officials say was a non-Doherty-related "technical problem."

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Press Association via AP Images

Sweet liberty for the former Libertine.

Pete Doherty walked out of London's Wormwood Scrubs prison this morning, after serving just 29 days of a 14-week sentence for his usual litany of drug and driving offenses.

Upon his release, the Babyshambles frontman told reporters he was looking forward to indulging in one of his more legal vices: drinking a rum and Coke. But proving he hasn't gone completely hard in jail, Doherty also said he was jonesing for some quality time with his cat.

While he also wasted no time in showing the assembled media a certificate indicating that he had passed a drug test while behind bars, he danced around a question asking whether he ceded to his drug habit during his prison stint.

"Well, I knew it was going to be a bit rough to start with, with the overcrowding and the medical facilities," the 29-year-old said. "Although they do their best—they are good, they can't cater for the average junkie."

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Is Pete Doherty a witch?

The Babyshambles rocker and onetime Kate Moss lover has reportedly been evicted from his nine-bedroom mansion in the British countryside for destroying it in a very unrock-star style: with human blood and cat feces.

Doherty is in jail, supposedly on a probation violation, but we wonder if something more sinister is at work. Like, that he stole a warlock’s staff or smote a sacred gargoyle. Or that he led a crusade to sell the Sorcerer’s Stone to Voldemort for crack money.

We don’t know. It’s England. They’re weird over there.

It may have taken a while, but Pete Doherty has finally run out of get-out-of-jail-free cards.

The arrest-prone, addiction-plagued rocker was sentenced to 14 weeks in jail during a London court hearing Tuesday, after being found in violation of his probation and for using unspecified drugs.

While the 29-year-old Babyshambles frontman has had more than his share of legal run-ins over the past few years, his current jailable offense stems from a probation order issued in last October for drug possession and driving illegally.

At the time, Doherty was given a suspended jail sentence and ordered to attend regular progress reports in court as well as enter into a rehab program. The sentence followed a May arrest for which he pleaded guilty to possession of crack cocaine, heroin, ketamine and cannabis.

According to the BBC, Kate Moss' infamous ex violated his probation by showing up late to one meeting with his probation officer and missing another altogether.

The British music magazine NME, meanwhile, cites a court spokesperson as claiming the violation was the result of "breach of time keeping, noncompliance of his order and using different drugs."

District Judge Davinder Lachar finally imposed a sentence of three and a half months, slightly less than the four-month stint he threatened Doherty with last fall.

Should all go well behind bars, however, the troubled musician will likely serve just one month in lockup.

A rep for the rocker has already vowed to appeal the ruling.

Doherty's pending incarceration puts the kibosh on what would have been his largest solo concert to date, scheduled to take place in London later this month.

"Peter was very much looking forward to the show and would like to offer his sincerest apologies to all his fans and to all those concerned," said his label, Parlaphone Records.

The gig has since been canceled, though tickets will be honored for the rescheduled, postsprung date.

Last Thursday, Pete Doherty told reporters he was "in mourning" for his drug-addled past. By Friday, his bereavement period had come to a screeching halt.

The Babyshambles frontman has apologized to fans, doctors, judges and his dwindling base of well-wishers for suffering a relapse that, in typical Doherty fashion, was captured on camera phone and posted to the Website of Britain's Sun newspaper.

Doherty called his latest high-profile relapse "a stupid, stupid action for which I feel only shame."

"Peter sadly relapsed last week and is now looking to check himself back in to a rehab clinic so that he can try to continue his hitherto excellent attempts he had made to break free of heroin," his record label, EMI, said in a statement. "He realizes he has not only let himself down but has let down those who trusted and encouraged his efforts."

The footage, which shows the 28-year-old rocker cooking what appears to be heroin on a spoon before injecting it into his tattoo-filled arm, was purported to have been taken on Friday, just hours after Doherty returned to London from performing at MTV's Europe Awards in Munich.

Ironically, his band's performance at the show was heralded by critics as one of the group's tightest in months, with special props going out to a seemingly sharp and more coherent than ever Doherty.

Before the ceremony, the rocker spoke with the British music mag NME, saying he was doing his best to keep clean but was nevertheless "in mourning" for his druggie lifestyle.

"It's hard work," he said. "I think I miss it a bit...I'm in mourning for an armful."

Doherty also perhaps prophetically told the magazine, which was touting its piece with the rocker as his first ever "clean" interview, that while he would do his best to "embrace" keeping sober, "the chances of me not getting arrested once in the next 18 months are quite slim really."

According to EMI, Doherty is "filled with remorse" over his relapse.

"Peter would like to apologize to the medical staff, fans and well-wishers who have helped and encouraged his progress," the company said. "His ongoing rehabilitation was a source of such pride to him that Peter and those closest to him thought that he was close to winning his personal battle with the drug."

It's unclear whose camera phone captured the one-minute, 14-second video of Doherty's relapse, though it was reportedly taken inside his London home. In addition to the video on the Sun's Website, the tabloid published still images from the footage in its print editions.

The emergence of the video and photos comes exactly one week after a London judge revoked Doherty's court-supervised drug treatment and issued him a suspended jail sentence on a series of drug and driving offenses. The judge credited positive progress made by the rocker in her sentence, which included an order for Doherty to complete a 12-month drug treatment plan that required twice-weekly testing and, yet again, no jail time.

"You have made strides, and I hope you will continue in doing so," Judge Janes McIvor said at the Oct. 26 hearing. "I would hate to see you going backward."

It's unclear when Doherty plans on kicking off another stint in rehab, though Babyshambles is still scheduled to embark on a U.K. arena tour Nov. 22.

So much for Pete Doherty's unsupervised lifestyle.

Just two days after one judge revoked the Babyshambles frontman's court-supervised drug treatment, another judge has sentenced him to 18 more months under supervision and ordered him to complete a 12-month drug treatment plan that requires him to submit to twice-weekly drug tests.

Even so, the renewed court supervision was a boon for the troubled rocker, who managed to skirt the slammer yet again.

In addition to the supervision order, Doherty was handed a four-month suspended jail sentence stemming from a series of drug- and driving-related offenses.

He was also banned from driving for six months. And he was fined $800 for driving without insurance and $154 for not having a valid inspection certificate for his car at the time of his arrest in May, after which he pleaded guilty to possession of crack cocaine, heroin, ketamine and cannabis.

"You have made strides, and I hope you will continue in doing so. I would hate to see you going backwards," District Judge Davinder Lachhar said in court.

She said she had suspended the rocker's sentence upon hearing of his positive progress—the same reason Judge Jane McIvor elected to revoke his court supervision earlier in the week.

On Wednesday, Doherty, 28, vowed he would continue his battle to stay clean.

"I think I am going to have to [give up drugs]," he said. "I have kind of had enough, really.

"It is just the beginning, you know what I mean, in their eyes. My life has changed, but I'm still a little bit wobbly. I am taking it one day at a time."

Pete Doherty's word of honor is good enough for a judge.

The troubled Babyshambles frontman vowed Wednesday to stay off drugs, shortly after Judge Jane McIvor released him from court supervision.

McIvor revoked Doherty's drug-treatment order six months early, saying she was confident he would continue to follow it.

Doherty has been attending voluntary drug rehabilitation sessions twice a week, and he has also dropped by Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.

The rocker has already been supervised for over 18 months, and managed to rack up numerous drug-related arrests over that time period.

However, the judge was apparently unconcerned that he will have problems beating his addictions.

"I wish you well," McIvor told Doherty.

Outside the courthouse, Doherty told reporters he planned to stay clean—but that if he ever needed a release, he could always visit a pub, as opposed to his dealer.

"I think I am going to have to [give up drugs]," he said. "I have kind of had enough, really.

"It is just the beginning, you know what I mean, in their eyes. My life has changed, but I'm still a little bit wobbly. I am taking it one day at a time."

Doherty, 28, said he was still undergoing treatment and was eager to get back on the road with his band.

In the meantime, he's due back in court Friday to be sentenced on charges of driving while in possession of illegal drugs, stemming from his May 5 arrest.