Rolling Stones drug bust to be made into a film

To some it is a defining moment in history, the point at which a moribund establishment started to disintegrate. To others, the Rolling Stones drugs trial was another nail in the coffin of old-fashioned British values.

Now the notorious arrest of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards is to be made into a film starring Nigel Havers, whose father was a key player in an episode that famously led The Times to ask, in Alexander Pope's words, "Who breaks a butterfly on a wheel?".

It began in 1967 when the two Stones were busted for drug possession at Richards's Sussex manor house, apparently after a tabloid tip-off to police. It went on to become a cause célèbre that saw the establishment turn on itself.

The movie, A Butterfly on a Wheel, is to be filmed next year with Havers playing his own father. Lord Havers, later the Attorney General, was the defence barrister for Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, who faced heavy fines and prison sentences.

The two-hour movie has been commissioned by HBO, the US company behind hits such as Sex and the City, The Sopranos and Six Feet Under.

The film is being scripted by Nick Fisher, who created the BBC2 male midlife crisis drama Manchild, starring Havers. He said: "It's a quirky bit of English history, but it has international appeal - 1967 was just an incredible year and this incident was a very significant turning point in history and the way the media works.

"It was perhaps the birth of a new kind of youth culture and a change in tabloid journalism - it was the first big 'pop stars and drugs' story."

Police raided Richards's home, Redlands in West Wittering, in what is now West Sussex, in February of that year to find an assortment of the band's friends and hangers on, including Jagger's then girlfriend Marianne Faithfull who was found naked except for a fur rug. Found in Jagger's coat were a handful of amphetamine "pep pills", said to have been obtained in Italy where they were legally available.

Jagger was charged with possession and the Stones guitarist with allowing his home to be used for their consumption. An ashtray was also found to have traces of cannabis. Also arrested was the gallery owner Robert Fraser for heroin possession.

At the trial that June at Chichester both Stones were found guilty, with Richards sentenced to a year in prison and fined £500, while Jagger received three months and a £200 fine.

But a backlash was brewing, summed up in an editorial in The Times by the editor William - now Lord - Rees-Mogg. Under the headline "Who Breaks a Butterfly on a Wheel?", it questioned the severity of the sentence, noting that it was "as mild a drug case as can ever have been brought before the courts".

The article added: "There must remain a suspicion in this case that Mr Jagger received a more severe sentence than would have been thought proper for any purely anonymous young man."

The establishment was outraged further the following month when the newspaper carried a full-page advertisement headed: "The law against marijuana is immoral in principle and unworkable in practice." Sixty-five leading lights called for changes in the law, with signatories ranging from doctors, Nobel laureate scientists and MPs to Graham Greene, David Bailey, Jonathan Miller and all four Beatles.

The ad caused an uproar when it appeared and was debated in the House of Commons in the week of public- ation. But the following week, Richards's conviction was quashed on appeal and Jagger's prison sentence was reduced to a conditional discharge.

Lord Rees-Mogg has long been surprised by the impact his editorial had on public consciousness, but he had no qualms about standing up for what he thought was right.

He said last week: "Nobody else would have been sent to prison for what was essentially a sea-sickness tablet. If I had landed at Dover with those pills in my pocket, or even if it was the Archbishop of Canterbury, we would have been given no more than a fine."

Lord Rees-Mogg was on a panel of establishment figures who interviewed Jagger for World in Action, orchestrated by a young John - now Lord - Birt.

Mr Fisher said of the film: "It's an idea that Nigel Havers made me aware of. It's a bit of family history for him. Although Jagger and Richards are central, I'd like a lot of the story not to revolve around just them. The real key to it all is Michael Havers.

"It was a very life-changing experience for him. He was the most expensive silk in the country and the pinnacle of the establishment."