Prosecutors have told Brent Magistrates' Court that George Michael had a cocktail of drugs in his system when he was arrested back in October last year, after fellow motorists reported that the singer was slumped over the wheel of his car at a set of traffic lights in North London. The singer has, as previously reported, admitted driving whilst unfit, but his lawyers claim that his condition that night was caused by prescription drugs, and not illegal narcotics.
However, prosecuting lawyer Andrew Torrington says that tests showed that cannabis and GHB were in his bloodstream as well as a legal quantity of anti-depressant, though Michael's lawyer argued in response that GHB can be found in the blood even when the drug hasn't been taken. The judge, Katherine Marshall, said that the issue at stake was not the level of drugs intake, in fact, but his condition when discovered in the car. It was then, according to a BBC report, made clear that Michael could expect a penalty at the "upper end of the scale for this offence", which implies that a custodial sentence may not be out of the question, given that the charge he's pleaded guilty to carries a maximum penalty of six months in prison.
The singer was not in court yesterday, but will appear on 8 Jun, when his sentence will be decided. He has released a statement which reads: "I have accepted throughout this affair that I was not in a fit state to have been driving a motor vehicle in the early hours of 1 October 2006 and accordingly pleaded guilty to the charge of driving whilst unfit through drink or drugs before Brent Magistrates' Court on 8 May 2007. I am delighted that at today's hearing the court accepted that the proper approach to my case is that which I have always maintained, in that I was unfit through a combination of tiredness and prescribed drugs, and that I will be sentenced on this basis". Concluding by implying he wasn't expecting a custodial sentence that might affect his upcoming Wembley concerts, he said: "I would like to conclude by saying I am really looking forward to playing Wembley Stadium on 9 and 10 June".
Elsewhere in George Michael news, the singer has sent John Lennon's 'Imagine' piano - which he owns, of course - to Virginia Tech (where the massacre happened) as part of the instrument's previously reported peace promoting tour.