February 1967 The Redlands drug bust
The Rolling Stones enshrined their reputation as rock'n'roll outlaws when Mick and Keith were arrested in the latter's Surrey mansion for possession of hash and amphetamines. In court, Richards was given a one-year jail sentence and Jagger three months, prompting the famous Times editorial, 'Who breaks a butterfly on a wheel?'
With Richards and Jagger out on bail the band then set about recording a new single, "We Love You", officially as a thank you for the loyalty shown by their fans, though privately it was seen as a barbed attack on their perceived persecutors: the News of the World, the Metropolitan Police and members of the British judiciary. The record featured the sounds of footsteps and a cell door banging shut, and which it is rumoured was taken from a secret recording from within Wormwood Scrubs, the London prison where Richards was held overnight. On appeal, they were both acquitted.
At Keith Richards' trial, much was made of 'Miss X' (i.e., Marianne Faithful), the single female guest who had been present when police entered Richards' house. One female detective testified that when the police squad arrived, Faithful had been "completely naked." Another male detective stated in court that as he had studied Marianne Faithful during the raid to detect signs of drug use, she had purposely let the fur bedcover she was wearing slip, "disclosing parts of her nude body." (Faithful later admitted that she had indeed given the police "a quick flash.") These lurid details about a naked girl wrapped in fur rug, brought out at the trial and reported in the press (although largely untrue), established the idea that the police had interrupted a drug-induced orgy. As Faithful described it: Their story went like this: a group of dissolute rock stars lured an innocent girl to a remote cottage where, having plied her with drugs, they had their way with her, including various sex acts involving a Mars Bar.
Exactly when and how this rumor got started is unknown, although it was already circulating by the time of the trial in June. Faithful herself said she first heard the story from Mick (who had himself heard it from another prisoner) while he was incarcerated at Wormwood Scrubs shortly after the trial. One claim is that the rumor was inspired by Keith's cache of candy, a detail which was supposedly listed in the official police inventory of the raid. In any case, as Norman wrote, the "Mars bar was a detail of such sheer madness as to make the story believed, then and forever after." ...