Amy's husband faces jail as he admits to attack on pub landlord and perverting course of justice

11 April 2012
The Weekender

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The husband of Amy Winehouse is facing a lengthy prison sentence after admitting brutally beating a pub landlord and trying to pervert the course of justice.

The 24-year-old singer twice visited Snaresbrook Crown Court in East London last week to show support for her husband Blake Fielder-Civil as he pleaded guilty to the charges which he had previously denied.

Details of the pleas can be revealed after Judge David Radford lifted restrictions banning the reporting of the admissions.

Trouble: Blake Fielder-Civil, pictured here with wife Amy Winehouse in October, has admitted attacking a pub landlord

Trouble: Blake Fielder-Civil, pictured here with wife Amy Winehouse in October, has admitted attacking a pub landlord


Fielder-Civil, 26, of Camden, North London, admitted causing grevious bodily harm to James King, 36, of the Macbeth pub in Hoxton, north London, last summer.

The reporting restrictions also covered the allegation that Mr King could have been subjected to intimidation or duress. 

Both causing grevious bodily harm and perverting the course of justice carry a maximum sentence of life in jail - although a British court has never given a sentence of more than 10 years for the latter.

Amy is said to be desperately worried that Blake, who she married in Miami last year after a stormy relationship, will receive a long jail sentence.

Shortly after he was held, it was reported Amy, who was arrested and questioned by detectives over the allegations of perverting the course of justice, had vowed to kill herself if Blake spent a long period behind bars.

Only 48-hours ago, her father Mitch Winehouse, 57, a cabbie, disclosed that Amy, was 'desperate' to start a family and planned to stand beside Blake.

The five-times Grammy award winning singer, whose album Back to Black has sold more than 10 million copies worldwide, has been fighting her own drug problems and her family fear that a lengthy jail sentence could cause a setback.

Mr Winehouse, who blames Blake for his daughter's drug taking, has been visiting him while he has been on remand in London's Pentonville prison and is convinced he holds the key to Amy's recovery.

Amy has attended several of her husband's court appearances and has been accused of turning them into a 'soap opera'...bursting into tears, blowing kisses at him and repeatedly mouthing 'I love you' during remand proceedings.

When he had been arrested in front of her last November by eight plainclothed police officers at a flat in Bow, East London, she had hugged and kissed him saying : 'Baby, I love you, baby I will be fine.' 

Police had earlier broken down the door of their London home.

Pleading guilty to inflicting grevious bodily harm and perverting the course of justice with Fielder-Civil, a music video assistant, was 25-year-old Michael Brown, of Carshalton, Surrey.

Anthony Kelly, 25, of Chalk Farm, north London, and James Kennedy, 19, of Hatfield, Hertfordshire, also pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice around November 2007.

King, the victim of the assault, of Risley, Derbyshire, alone faces trial on a charge of perverting the course of justice and the prosecution is expected to begin the case tomorrow at Snaresbrook. 

Fielder-Civil, Brown, Kelly and Kennedy are due to be sentenced at the end of King's trial.

Fielder-Civil, a one-time music video assistant, has spent much of his first year of marriage behind bars, having been remanded in custody ahead of his trial which had been due to begin this month before his guilty pleas.

Fielder-Civil and his co-defendants will be sentenced at a later date.

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