Wham, bam, George Michael's banned!!

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George Michael banned from driving and given 100 hours community service

 

by BRIAN FARMER - More by this author » Last updated at 20:04pm on 8th June 2007 Comments (8)

George Michael could give singing lessons in youth clubs as part of his sentence for drug-driving.

The singer escaped jail when he appeared in court but was given 100 hours' community service after admitting driving while unfit through drugs.

The sentence means he can continue his world tour and play sell-out concerts at Wembley Stadium tonight and tomorrow.

As he left the court, he told the assembled media that he would not answer any questions. He posed for waiting photographers, and then read a short statement.

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George Michael: The singer received a two-year driving ban for driving while unfit due to drugs and a one hundred hour community service order to completed with 12 months

 

In his statement he called the "media coverage of this trial farcical", and said he fully accepted responsibility for being guilty of the charge due to "tiredness" and his use of "prescription drugs".

Michael, 43, added he was glad to put the trial behind him, and was now off "to play the biggest show of my life at Wembley".

He said he was ashamed of risking other people's lives as he drove his Mercedes erratically in North London in the early hours of October 1 last year.

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The singer calms the crowd before reading out his statment following his sentence

 

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Police found the car stopped at traffic lights with Michael slumped at the wheel, drooling and sweating.

Blood tests showed a cocktail of drugs including an antidepressant, sleeping pill, cannabis and the illegal dance club drug GHB.

But Brent Magistrates' Court was told the cannabis was not responsible for his condition.

The singer's solicitor, Brian Spiro, told the court that Michael had taken a sleeping pill to counter insomnia, but decided to drive from his Highgate home to his house in Hampstead to watch a DVD of his latest concert.

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Michael was found slumped at the wheel of his car in Cricklewood in October last year

 

District Judge Katherine Marshall also gave the singer, who appeared under his real name of George Panayiotou, an immediate two-year driving ban and ordered him to pay £2,325 costs.

In court the singer’s lawyers insisted his guilty plea was tendered only on the basis that his unfitness to drive was due to the sleeping tablet and his natural exhaustion.

Prosecutor Andrew Torrington underlined that the Crown did not accept that basis of plea.

But Michael Grieve, representing the singer, told the court experts agreed that the presence of GHB could have been caused naturally.

Mr Grieve said Michael would be hit hard by a driving ban because "he is not somebody, for obvious security reasons, who can use public transport".

At one stage Michael leapt to his feet and said: "Can I say that when I was talking about being ashamed...I am not a shamed of my behaviour to myself but of putting other people at risk."

The judge said that she considered the case to be “towards the top end of the scale” in seriousness even though Michael had pleaded guilty.