George Michael guilty of drug offence
Pop icon George Michael pleaded guilty at Brent Magistrates Court this morning to a charge of being unfit to drive due to drugs.
An additional charge of being in charge of a vehicle while unfit through drugs has been dropped. He will be sentenced later this month
“I am perfectly aware that I did something very wrong and got into my car when I was unfit to drive,” George Michael said in court.
“I was not in my normal physical state and I’m perfectly prepared to accept the correct punishment for that and I would have accepted it a long time ago.
“It was fairly predictable considering how much work I had done that week.”
His guilty plea follows an incident last October when he was found by police in his car in Cricklewood, north London, allegedly passed out.
Members of the public had called the police in the early hours of October 1st to deal with a Mercedes Benz S-Class car which was obstructing traffic lights.
Michael was found at the wheel semi-conscious, taken to hospital and then arrested for suspected possession of drugs.
Last month District Judge Katherine Marshall rejected an application for the singer to avoid coming to court.
She allowed him to miss the first day of hearings but insisted he turn up on June 8th, the day before his concert in the new Wembley Stadium.
By pleading guilty he has avoided a trial.
2006 was a bad year for the former Wham! front man, who came out of the closet in 1998 after being arrested in Los Angeles for cottaging.
In February Michael was arrested for possession of cannabis and in May he was discovered slumped over the wheel of his Range Rover.
In July the tabloids went into a frenzy when he was discovered cruising for sex on Hampstead Heath.
