The Map: Jailhouse rock

History has shown us that there are certain things that rock stars should avoid at all costs. Primarily drugs, guns and toilets, if the cases below are anything to go by. But still the list of rock star arrests lengthens, as yet more porcelain gods topple from the mantelpiece to be scorched by the flames of debauchery. Later this year, Gary Glitter appears in court charged with a sexual assault on a teenage girl, a charge which he vigorously denies. But here are those definitely guilty as charged in Britain's current rock'n'roll hall of infamy.

Liam Gallagher

Slack-jawed simian Liam Gallagher has been in the dock on a number of petty charges, including stealing a packet of razors from a Swedish supermarket. Returning home triumphantly from the 1996 Q Music Awards in the early hours one morning, Gallagher was also arrested on London's Oxford Street by a policeman who mistook him for a tramp and found him to be in possession of cocaine. Gallagher was cautioned for both offences.

Rob Collins

One of the more bewildering pop star arrests was that of Charlatan's keyboard player Rob Collins, who was imprisoned for four months in 1993 for his involvement in the armed robbery of a Black Country off-licence (the gun was fake, incidentally). The musician drove the getaway car, though he always claimed he was an unwitting accomplice (after all, he hardly needed the money). Collins died in a car crash in Wales, in 1996.

Mick Jagger and Keith Richard

The definitive rock bust took place in 1967 at Keith Richard's West Wittering home, when police raided the property and found "various substances of a suspicious nature" - along with a young (though no-longer-innocent) Marianne Faithfull. Richard and Jagger were arraigned on drugs charges.

See `This could be the last time', page 55

George Michael

Of the several pop stars to come a cropper in a public toilet (notably Chuck Berry, who was caught peeping on ladies in the loos of his restaurant), George Michael is the most celebrated. Having been arrested in Beverly Hills last year for returning an unconventional greeting from a stranger (an undercover cop who exposed himself), Michael spun the experience into a PR success with the self-referential album Ladies And Gentlemen.

James Brown

In a criminal career that makes Keith Richard look like Lord Rees Mogg (which, come to think of it, he is beginning to do anyway) the Godfather of Soul has been arrested on car, drugs and gun offences - beginning with jail for car theft aged 15. In 1987 he burst into a seminar taking place next door to his office in Augusta, Georgia, waving a gun and demanding to know who had used his bathroom. He then legged it with the police in pursuit.

Ian Brown

Evidence that football is indeed the new rock'n'roll came last year when former Stone Roses front man Ian Brown was arrested and jailed for four months for that most football player-ish of crimes, misbehaving on an aeroplane. Brown threatened to chop off the hands of an air stewardess on a flight from Paris to Manchester. He then proceeded to hammer on the flight-deck door as the pilot was trying to land the plane.

Peter Tosh

Sometime associate of Bob Marley and latterly a solo artist, Jamaican- born Peter McIntosh was arrested throughout the Sixties and Seventies by Jamaican police on ganja charges, and proudly displayed the scars he received from their beatings. In protest, he recorded a song, "Legalize It", and railed at what he called the "shitstem". Tosh was shot to death during a botched robbery outside his home in Kingston, Jamaica in 1987.

Sid Vicious

The death of Nancy Spungen is a mystery to this day - at least that is what fans of Sid Vicious say. As far as the New York police were concerned, the Sex Pistols' bassist was as guilty as Barabas of stabbing his girlfriend to death while in a drunken stupor in the Chelsea Hotel, New York in 1978. Police claimed he confessed: "I did it because I'm a dirty dog." He died from an overdose before standing trial.

Fela Kuti

Most of the arrests detailed here have been a result of selfish, hedonistic urges. Nigerian afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti was made from more altruistic stuff, however. His brutal arrests were a direct result of his revolutionary lyrics and their massive popularity in West Africa. In late 1974, the Nigerian army was sent to arrest Kuti at his Lagos home. While they were at it they razed the building to the ground. During another raid his 82- year-old mother was thrown from a first floor window. Kuti was jailed again in 1984 on trumped-up currency smuggling charges. The world music pioneer died from an Aids-related disease in 1997.

Paul McCartney

Famously, the only time Paul and Linda were separated was during Paul's incarceration in a Tokyo police cell. Caught at Tokyo International Airport, during the tour for the 1979 Wings album Back to the Egg, with enough grass to have enabled him to dispense with the plane altogether, "Prisoner no. 22" was led away in handcuffs and locked up for nine days before being released with a caution.