Winehouse in the big house, so she is... maybe

The News of the World is excited this morning. Slapped all over the front page, in war-breaks-out sized type:

Amy Jail Hell

Oddly, with a large showbiz story like this, rather than "Britain's hottest showbiz reporter", the tale goes to Douglas Wight and Phil Taylor.

So, Amy's jail hell? Is she going down?

Well... not quite. Not only has Amy not been charged with anything, she hasn't actually been interviewed yet, either:

POLICE are to quiz troubled rock star Amy Winehouse over an alleged trial-rigging plot.

The 24-year-old singer must give fingerprints and DNA samples and will be questioned under caution.

Which is a sticky moment, but perhaps not calling for the wilder extrapolations of the paper:

She could face LIFE in jail if cops link her to the suspected conspiracy to clear husband Blake Fielder-Civil on a GBH charge.

So, if police believe she had done something, and if the CPS send her to trial, and if the jury find her guilty, a judge could sentence her to life. Which, yes, that would be jail hell, we guess, but is a purely hypothetical jail hell, surely?

The honest headline: "Amy's possible jail hell".

But the NOTW hasn't stopped screwing up the tension:

Frightened Amy has vowed to commit SUICIDE if she is sentenced to a long term in prison.

Blimey, so it's not just there's a slim chance of her spending the rest of her life in prison, but there's an equally vague possibility she might act on a reported off-the-cuff remark about killing herself, too. Interestingly, neither Wight nor Taylor set a figure for the length of jail term which trigger this suicide: four years? twelve years? eight, but with no hope of parole?

The News of the World still has more speculation left in it, though:

If she fails to show up [for questioning] she faces the humiliation of a raid on her new home in Bow, east London, and formal arrest.

So, in summary, then, the police want to question Amy Winehouse. From this, the paper has spun a story which sees her humiliated, sent down and dead. It's The Wall Street Journal's sister paper, don't you know?