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| Jaxx |
Excerpt from Stone Alone, by
Bill Wyman
February 11th
There were nine in the party: Mick Marianne, Keith, Robert Fraser, Fraser's Moroccan servant Ali Mohammed, photographer Michael Cooper, Christopher Gibbs, Nicky Kramer, a Chelsea hippie and a 27 year old Canadian David Schneiderman, known as "Acid King David".
Schneiderman's contribution to the weekend had been a briefcase packed with sophisticated narcotics. He woke up most of the guests on Sunday morning with cups of tea and offered some of them "white lightning" a hallucinogenic drug that had the offect of LSD but was slightly less powerful.
...The nine guests all sat down to dinner cooked by Ali Mohammed and then began to watch TV in the drawing room. Some were smoking joints. Marianne, who had had a bath did not want to put on her muddy jeans again, so she wrapped herself in a big fur rug.
Detectives on the scene testified that Marianne Faithfull, naked, except for a fur skin rug was sitting between two men on a sofa facing the fireplace. Between the sofa and fireplace was a stone table. On it was a tin marked Incense. A briar pipe-bowl on the table was taken away and its contents analyzed. they were found to contain traces of cannabis resin. the ash found and analyzed was found to contain Indian hemp. The young woman let the rug fall from time to time exposing her body. The woman was in a merry mood and one of vague unconcern. When the rug fell to the ground she remarked, "look they want to search me"...
"at 7:55 pm, chief inspector Gordon Dineley, with 18 other police officers (including 3 police women) drove up the narrow lande leading to Redlands. After knocking on the door they were kept waiting for a few minutes, because when Keith looked up and saw what thought was a little old lady outside (a police woman peering through the drapes) he thought it was an autograph seeking fan.
police knocks on the door increased and after they had announced themselves, Keith opened the door and after the police explained the purpose of their visit, he immediately phoned his solicitor, Timothy Hardacre of London.
Keith was shown a warrant, issued under the Dangerous Drugs Act of 1965. Police then interviewed all the people at the party and searched their possessions.
In one bedroom, Detective-Constanoble John Challon found a green jacket on the back of a chair. In a pocket was a plastic phial contianing four tablets, with an Italian label saying Stenamina. Mick admitted the coat belonged to him. Asked about the pills he replied, "yes my Dr., perscribed them". Mick was said to have told the police he used the tablets to stay awake and work. Mick later claimed that he had purchased the pills from a vending machine at the airport in Italy during his trip to SanRemo.
Police took possession of a briar pop-bowl without a stem from a drawing-room table and found in it traces of cannabis resin, which was aslo found on a drawing-room table. They found a pudding basin beside a bedside table containing ash. They also found a tin containg what appeared to be incense, and elsewhere they found sticks of incense. They even opened airline mustard sample packs and miniature bars of soap from hotels, which Keith always collected. In all, they took away twenty-nine items, including cigarettes, four candlesticks, soap and the butt ends of cigarettes. Before they left, police told Keith that if a dangerous drugs were found to have been used and they had no relation to an individual, he would be held responsible. I see, Keith replied. They pin it all on me.
As the police prepared to leave Redlands, someone with bitter insouciance put a record on the turntable: Bob Dylan singing 'Rainy-Day Women' featuring the classic chorus line: 'EVERYBODY must get stoned!'
Just as the police left, Brian phoned from London. He and Anita had completed their work and they would be at West Wittering in a couple of hours. 'Don't bother,' Keith told him. 'We've been busted'.
While the party had been in full swing, an informant, who had earlier telephoned the News of the World, arrived at the newspaper's offices. In that first phone call, at 10 pm, on Saturday, he hold a reporter that he had some information about a party some of the Rolling Stones were holding in West Sussex. Giving the Redlands address he said a weekend party would continue throughout Sunday. It was obviously an insider: who else would know that only "some" of the Stones would be there? A senior newspaper executive advised by Scotland Yard that the police force directly concerned should be notified, then gave the information to drug squad officers connected with West Sussex police. Warrants were obtained to carry out a raid on Redlands.
[Edited by Jaxx] |
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CHAT ROOM aka THE FUN HOUSE] [
RESTROOMS]