Mick Jagger: Vindicated

London, Aug. 2: The senior Scotland Yard officer who investigated a complaint by Mick Jagger in 1969 that he had been framed by the drug squad referred to the Rolling Stone’s main witnesses as “the dregs of society”.

Two years before other drugs squad officers were found guilty of crimes of extortion, Commander Robert Huntley dismissed evidence against the head of the unit’s Chelsea branch because it was the word of a policeman against Jagger and his then girlfriend, Marianne Faithfull, whom he called “drug users or traffickers in them”.

A sworn statement by Jagger ? now Sir Mick ? saying that Detective Sergeant Robin Constable tried to “frame” him on a heroin possession charge in 1969 is part of a file of documents on the case released by the National Archives yesterday.

The Rolling Stones singer said that during a raid on his home in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, Detective Sergeant Constable suddenly found “some white powder” in a white Cartier box and, out of earshot of his colleagues, asked Jagger for ?1,000 to drop a possession charge.

Jagger said he was instructed to persuade Faithfull, then 23, who was downstairs, to admit it was hers. Constable allegedly said: “You plead not guilty and she pleads guilty.”

The policeman allegedly warned Jagger that if he were convicted “it would be difficult for [you] to go to America”.

The US authorities considered heroin possession to be grounds for refusal of a work permit ? which was vital for the band’s lucrative American tours. Jagger was eventually fined ?200 with 50 guineas costs on a lesser charge of possession of cannabis.

Huntley, in exonerating the officer, wrote: “The private persons interviewed during the course of this investigation represent extreme ends of the scale.

“At one end are public figures while at the other are the dregs of society. It is interesting to note that those who purport to give first hand evidence in support of the allegation are at the lower end of the scale, being drug users or traffickers in them.”

The claim of police corruption came after the infamous “Redlands raid” two years earlier, when Jagger and his band mate, Keith Richards, were jailed for possession of cannabis and amphetamines. Amid uproar that the punishment was too harsh, the singer was released on probation, while the guitarist’s conviction was overturned.

Jagger told investigators that Constable arrived at his home with “a number of other police officers” as he was about to leave for a recording session.

He said the detective walked across to a small round table and picked up a white box. The singer alleged: “He was holding it in his hand. He quickly pulled out a folded piece of white paper.” The officer then allegedly said: “Aha, we won’t have to look much further.”

Jagger said: “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’. He made no comment.”