Jaime Harding goes inside

Sad to hear that Jaime Harding has been sent to prison - sad to hear that his life, which he had got back on track, has fallen apart again.

The band have issued a statement:

MARION OFFICIAL STATEMENT / REISSUES RELEASES
- AUGUST 2016 -

"It is with great sadness that we unfortunately have to inform Marion fans of Jaime's incarceration at Strangeways (HMP Manchester), following his arrest due to drugs earlier this year.

This forces us to now cancel the planned Marion live shows for 2016, which we had scheduled following prior notification that Jaime's case would not be dealt with until December.

Please accept our sincere apologies for the disappointment and any inconvenience caused, Jaime is devastated at this outcome and we can confirm that the Marion shows will be re-booked at the earliest opportunity upon Jaime's release. Please stay tuned to here and www.marionthegroup.com for updates.

In the meantime, we can end this statement on a positive, with the exciting news that Marion's UK Top 10 selling debut album 'This World and Body' will be reissued as a 3 CD Deluxe edition (with reissued Vinyl to follow) and Marion's Johnny Marr produced 2nd album 'The Program' will also be reissued as a 2 CD Deluxe edition, all through Demon Music Group's Edsel Records on 16th September 2016, with the CD Deluxe editions already available for pre-order on Amazon.

Following on from Edsel's Deluxe CD releases on 16th September, Demon Records will release a special 20th Anniversary Edition of Marion’s debut album 'This World and Body' on 180g Red Vinyl on 4th November 2016, which is now available to pre-order."

I'm not sure the best place to plug your reissues is a post about your lead singer being incarcerated because he burned his girlfriend's clothes when she refused to answer his calls, but I suppose more people will have visited the Marion website as a result of this news than would have come in the last year.

Lights Over Paris to become bloke over in B-wing

So, Michael Jackson is making cash by simply being dead. That wasn't an option for Robb "TaLLLLL" University, from the band Lights Over Paris. He came up with a better idea: scamming banks.

The banks never asked how come a man from a minor band appeared to have assets worth USD8million, and so happily loaned him USD11million against those assets. The assets didn't exist; he's been found out.

What makes things worse is that after he'd been caught, and entered a guilty plea, he went out the very next day and tried to raise more money using forged documents.

Unsurprisingly, he's heading off to prison now.

One of the things he did with the ill-gotten gains was buy "a tourbus in the shape of an airplane". That sounds impractical apart from anything - wouldn't the wings get in the way?

Lauryn Hill goes away

So, with the million in unpaid taxes finally catching up with her, Lauryn Hill has started her prison sentence:

Hill reported to federal prison in Danbury, said Ed Ross, a spokesman for the federal Bureau of Prisons. Inmates at the minimum security prison live in open dormitory-style living quarters and are expected to work jobs such as maintenance, food service or landscaping.

Landscaping? If they've got all their inmates landscaping, the prison grounds must look like Schloss Linderhof.

TI helps out

TI is currently in prison, after ignoring his parole terms relating to his love of drugs. But he's actually doing something nice while inside:

"I've been blessed to receive tons and tons of mail from my fans, family and friends, as well as get visits on a regular basis. Unfortunately some guys aren't as fortunate," T.I. said in a statement obtained by MTV News. "There are a lot of good dudes in here that haven't been able to see there loved ones in years. Their families can't afford the trip so I wanted to help out."

He's paid out for families of fellow prisoners to visit this weekend. Sure, there's an element of brand-rebuilding going on here, but it's still a nice thing to do.

Glasgow, you'll have to get by without Pete Doherty this evening

Pete Doherty is back inside after pleading guilty to cocaine possession. But on the not-especially bright side, at least he didn't kill Robin Whitehead. The BBC reports:

Judge David Radford said Doherty had given Ms Whitehead crack cocaine but it was not the cause of her death.

He said: "Police became aware of the relevant evidence because of the investigation which followed the discovery of the sad death of a young woman who had been present at the address where the offences had been committed.

"The offences involved the social supply of crack cocaine in a crack cocaine pipe, which you handed to that person.

"I make it clear though, abundantly clear, that the young woman's death was not caused by that supply of crack cocaine."

Doherty got a six month sentence. His defence lawyer tried to keep him out of jail by arguing that locking Doherty up would cause him to let people down. As if that would somehow be out of character for him.

Gordon in the morning: George Michael is like a Moors murderer or... something

To be fair to Gordon, it looks like the incoherent babbling about George Michael on his pages this morning is only there by automation. The byline on the piece belongs to:

JOHN KAY, Chief Reporter, and NEIL SYSON

The story is that George Michael has been moved out of Pentonville to a lower security prison. Or, as Kay and Syson would have it:

George moved to Myra's soft jail

SHAMED George Michael was secretly switched to a soft jail yesterday where Moors killer Myra Hindley was locked up.

Michael is now in Highpoint, which would seem to be fair as it's not like he's killed anyone. There doesn't seem to be any real need to mention Hindley other than it being a chance for The Sun to rage again about the Moors Murders.

In fact, there's no need to mention Hindley at all, as she never was an inmate at Highpoint - true, she spent the last three years of her life in a neighbouring jail which was called Highpoint at the time, but that is the current Edmunds Hill Prison. The one she was in was the same one Boy George spent time in; Michael's jail was the one Tony Martin passed most of his sentence.

Freedom is just a song by Wham!

This, sadly, feels like something that's been inevitable: George Micheal's been sent to prison after the most recent driving-while-drugged incident.

It turns out driving into a branch of Snappy Snaps is just pushing your luck too far.

He's been jailed for eight weeks.

Bez: Strangeways, there you go

After serving two weeks of his one-month sentence for attacking his partner, Bez is out of Strangeways.

He'd have probably have spent longer in the Big Brother house than he did in prison.

Lil Wayne schedules prison time

It's yet to be convincingly explained to me how Americans get given prison dates the way the British get hospital appointments - an invitation to come over some time in the future.

Lil Wayne, American justice has decided, must spend time in prison to make society safer (he was waggling a gun round.)

Fair enough. But if prison is vital in turning him from a gun-toting threat to society into a good and honest man, why does he not have to go until February? Isn't it a bit dangerous having him wandering round over Christmas, potentially shooting at Santa as he flies overhead?

Or... are the authorities really saying that prison has such little effect, it doesn't really matter when you go?

Spector gets a letter

If we're to believe any of it, Charles Manson has been sending Phil Spector letters suggesting that - since they're both being held in the same prison, they should make some music together:

Spector's wife Rachelle Spector told a US newspaper: 'A guard brought Philip a note from Manson, who said he wanted him to come over to his [lockup]. He said he considers Philip the greatest producer who ever lived. 'It was creepy. Philip didn't respond.'

Creepy? God, I'll say. 'One of the best producers' maybe, but to claim he's the greatest whoever lived? That's some serious creeping.

I'm tempted to see if we can get Pete Waterman thrown into the same jail on some trumped up charge to test if Manson approaches him, too. For something other than "do you have Mike Stock's phone number?"

Rhode Island fire: Co-owner released

According to a local TV channel, Michael Derderian, one of the co-owners of the nightclub where 100 people died in a fire following a Great White show, has been released early from prison.

He was originally expected to be freed in the autumn, but has secured an early release through good behaviour.

[Rhode Island nightclub fire - full coverage]

Boy George is out

No, no: Out of prison. He's been let out early for good behaviour; he's tagged and has a curfew to make sure he stays at home.

Although given that the offences of which he was convicted took place at his flat, I'm not quite sure how that's meant to help. It's like telling Lenny The Safe Guy he has to sleep in a vault at his local NatWest, isn't it?

Gordon in the morning: Mrs GaGa's Summer Holiday

Worrying news from Lady GaGa's camp this morning as Gordon suggests she's about to crack:

Lady GaGa goes lala

EXHAUSTED LADY GAGA has been given a month off as record label bosses fear she’s about to burn out.

The double chart-topper’s ferocious work rate — added to her love of a good old tear-up — is taking its toll.

Uh-oh - a woman on the very edge of a breakdown, you say, Gordon?

So it’s still GaGa by name and very nearly GaGa by nature.

The sensitive approach to mental health is one of the things that The Sun is known for, of course.

It's so serious, though, Gordon gets through an entire piece her without mentioning hotpants or bra tops. So, tell us more about this emergency intervention, Gordon:

“Her management have spotted the warning signs and do not want her going off the rails.

“They’ve scrapped all her commitments in August to give her time to get her head straight.”

Oh. So, this story is actually 'woman looks forward to a nice summer holiday in a few months', then?

And it's hard to know exactly who this story reflects worst on:

JAILED Jack Tweed turned tail and ran from the showers in prison — after THREE encounters with naked gay star Boy George.

Probably the person who made it up in the first place.

Breaking: Pirate Bay team jailed

BBC News is reporting that the Pirate Bay team are heading to jail:

A court in Sweden has handed down its verdict on four men behind The Pirate Bay (TPB), the world's biggest file-sharing website.

Frederik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Carl Lundstrom and Peter Sunde were found guilty of breaking copyright law and were sentenced to a year in jail.

George goes down

As someone - probably on Popbitch - observed: he's not a man without convictions any more.

Boy George has been given a fifteen-month sentence for charges relating to chaining up a bloke in his flat:

Judge Radford said: "Whilst I accept that Mr Carlsen's physical injuries were not serious or permanent, in my view there can be no doubt that your premeditated callous and humiliating handcuffing and detention of Mr Carlsen shocked, degraded and traumatised him.

"He was deprived of his liberty and human dignity without warning or proper explanation to him of its purpose, length or purported justification."
Family and friends react outside the courtroom
The singer's family and friends were angry at the sentence

He also ordered the singer, who had decided not to testify, to pay £5,000 costs.

Still, at least Boy George spared his mother, apparently.

George looking at jail time

And so Boy George's story takes another step towards the tragic: He's been found guilty of false imprisonment over that male escort he handcuffed and tried to keep in his house.

[Talking to police, George said]: "If I was going to beat [Auden Carlsen] up, I would have got my friend to beat him up with me, if I was going to do anything that vile."

It turned out that the Metropolitan Police didn't quite feel convinced by 'I would have got someone else to beat him' line of defence.

It sounds like George should have actually thought about asking the friend to see to fixing the handcuffs properly, given that when George did it, his victim was able to free himself and prance off down the street.

George's explanation in court for the imprisonment was that he had reason to believe Carlsen had been hacking into his computer which somehow gave him the right to manacle a man in his bedroom didn't, surprisingly, hold up to much in the way of cold, hard, legal light:

During the trial his defence barrister, Adrian Waterman QC, told the jury in his closing statement that the argument was whether Carlsen had stolen photographs and "in doing that, messed up George O'Dowd's computer".

He added that the suggestion that the singer had concocted the story about computer tampering because Carlsen refused to have sex with O'Dowd during their first meeting was "entire fantasy or a lie".

It's not entirely clear whether George was supposing the mercy of the court would be unleashed at the suggestion of stolen pictures, or at the idea of having to rebuild his desktop and re-install XP. Whichever it was, it didn't work, and the judge has warned George that he's seriously considering a custodial sentence.

Fielder-Civil goes deeper inside

Good news, then, for Gordon Smart, who is assured a string of stories smuggled out of jail in the coming weeks as Blake Fielder-Civil starts a 27-month sentence for a violent assault on a pub landlord and attempting to pervert the course of justice.

In a bid to try and keep himself out of chokey, his defence unsuccessfully attempted a bit of clumsy 'Amy Winehouse MIGHT DIE' if you send him down pleading:

Jeremy Dein QC, for Fielder-Civil, said his client had been thrown in to a "nightmare scenario" after the attack.

"[It's] not just for him but for his wife and his family," he said.

Mr Dein said the attack was the result of a "drugs-ridden lack of judgment rather than callousness".

"For almost half his life he has been in the clutches of drugs," he said.

He said Fielder-Civil had a history of self-harm and suicide attempts but was determined to rebuild his life with his wife.

He said: "It's their ambition to divorce themselves from hard drugs, not to separate themselves from each other.

"He knows that if he fails, an appointment with calamity awaits, not just for him but for his wife as well."

'If you don't do something, there's a chance Amy Winehouse might continue to take drugs' is hardly a very plausible argument, is it? It's like saying "if you don't put your recycling out on the right night, the sun will one day go supernova and destroy all life in our galaxy". It might be true, but it's just not connected.

Gordon in the morning: And this is your Blake on drugs

Interesting photos of Mr Winehouse doing heroin in Pentonville on Gordon's pages this morning. Ironic that, as David Blakey prepares his report on drugs in UK prisons, Amy's Blakey proves his point.

The wider question, though, is where Gordon is getting his photos from - are they coming from a prisoner with a mobile phone? Is Gordon paying for these snaps? And what would a prisoner be doing with a mobile phone in the first place? If the pictures aren't from a prisoner, then they'd have to be from staff. Either way, Smart is encouraging rule-breaking himself by running the photos - and, since there's no real public interest in seeing photos of Blake Fielder-Civil on his prison toilet - it's not clear why he thinks we should be encouraging people to be running round inside prisons with mobiles.

More at his level, there's an alarming photo of Smart looming out of a frame with Lionel Blair, illustrating a story suggesting that Smart couldn't actually think of a reason for printing it:

Lionel Blair hadn’t a clue

Really? The story is that Blair turned up for a wedding at the Dorchester while the Kaisers and Oasis were being drunk. Not clear that means he "didn't have a clue", unless it's now incumbent upon us all to know the whereabouts of Gallagher and Wilson at all times.

As I frogmarch him into The Dorchester, Noel and Ricky chant: “Lionel, give us a clue! Lionel, Lionel give us a clue!”

Yes, for some reason, Gordon felt the need to "frogmarch" a man into an event he'd been invited to. It doesn't strike us that Lionel is the one lacking a clue.

Weiland makes Doherty look like the Birdman Of Alctraz

Considering the way our papers spluttered when Pete Doherty rolled out of prison after a couple of weeks, how would they react to Scott Weiland's ten-hour stretch?

Weiland is taking advantage of those rules which allow some US criminals to more or less timeshare their chokey, doing a few hours here and there. At this rate, he'll have finished his 192 hours sometime around the time of the 2012 Olympics.

Doherty: Drugs, me? Never

Pete Doherty has celebrated his release from jail by giving an interview to NME.com denying stories he was on drucks inside the jail:

"I managed to stay clean. I got my certificate. I was going to Sellotape it to the wall, but they wouldn't give me any Sellotape," he said. "Did I take heroin inside? Complete rubbish. The prison didn't release statements – it's their policy to ignore it rather than acknowledge it [media reports].

"I was in segregation for the last three weeks. They call it the block. Supposedly I was in debt to loads of big time drug dealers. All I'll say to that is: chance would be a fine thing."

Now, you wouldn't expect someone whose freedom relies on being clean to emerge from jail and start trilling about his drugs intake inside, would you?

Somewhat oddly, the NME report also highlights the word sellotape in the report. Twice, so it's not a mistake or anything. Equally oddly, Doherty doesn't explain why he was put into segregation.

Pete claims that his time inside was hell:

"I got trouble from the start, from the inmates and the guards, mainly shouting at night really," he explained. "Some people were saying 'Keep your head down', the other half were saying 'Keep your chin up'. So I was a bit like a nodding dog – I didn't know whether to keep my chin up or keep my head down. It was 18-day early release – I can't complain really."

Is it just us, or is being advised to keep your head down or chin up not quite the same thing as "getting trouble"? If that's hassle, then we're now viewing Jiminy Cricket as some sort of insect-like Reggie Kray figure.