Jail for Winehouse drug plot man

Amy Winehouse appeared to be smoking a crack pipe in the video

A man who plotted to offer drugs to singer Amy Winehouse so he could sell lucrative video footage to newspapers has been jailed for two years.

John Blagrove and his partner Cara Burton, from Dalston, east London, sold footage of Winehouse appearing to smoke crack cocaine to The Sun for £50,000.

They both admitted offering to supply drugs at Snaresbrook Crown Court. Burton received a supervision order.

Winehouse was not charged as it was not proved she had taken illegal drugs.

Singing incoherently

The court heard that Blagrove and Burton filmed Winehouse at a party in January.

The footage showed the singer apparently smoking a crack pipe, snorting a substance from a card, openly discussing drugs and singing incoherently.

The footage also showed Blagrove boasting to other people at the party: "I've got coke. Proper wicked coke. Banging coke."

In the film Blagrove denied supplying drugs to Winehouse, telling a female friend: "She's had enough as it is."

After the Winehouse scene, the footage showed Blagrove telling his reflection in a mirror: "You have succeeded. You have done it. You are going places. It's taken a while, but I've finally got what I want."

Police raided the couple's home after the footage appeared in The Sun, the court heard.

They seized filming equipment and found a "hit list" of other celebrities the couple intended to target.

'No effect'

Winehouse was also interviewed by police about the footage.

Andrew Henley, representing Blagrove, said: "Amy Winehouse was interviewed, and admitted she had taken drugs, believed to be crack cocaine and MDMA.

"But she questioned what they were because they had no effect on her."

A more public-spirited person would have handed (the footage) to the police, rather than making money from it Judge Tudor Owen

Blagrove, 34, admitted two counts of offering to supply Class A drugs cocaine and ecstasy (MDMA) and one of offering to supply Class B drug amphetamine.

Burton, 22, admitted two counts of offering to supply amphetamine. She was given a two-year community order.

Judge Tudor Owen said Blagrove was being jailed for offering to supply drugs, not for selling the footage.

"A more public-spirited person would have handed it to the police, rather than making money from it," the judge said. "But it would be quite wrong to punish him for that."

The judge said the couple's sentences would have been "considerably higher" if it had been proved that they had supplied drugs.

"Notwithstanding what is clearly visible in the video, there is no evidence of drugs being supplied or even used," he added.

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