The Redlands Raid: How the News of the World Set Up the Rolling Stones

In February 1967, while Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were crashing at Richards’ country house, Redlands, the News of the World ran a front-page story accusing the band of taking LSD at a party. A few days later, police raided the place. They didn’t find LSD but did find amphetamines and cannabis. Richards and Jagger were both arrested—along with art dealer Robert Fraser—but the raid wasn’t random. The paper had tipped off the cops after receiving a tip from a former lover of Richards, a “Miss X” (real name: Marianne Faithfull’s friend, but later identified as a woman named Pat or “Anita”? Actually, it was a tip from a reporter who’d been played by a jealous acquaintance). The News of the World had a moral crusade going against pop stars, and the Stones were their favorite target.

The arrests led to the famous 1967 trial where Jagger got three months, Richards one year—both later overturned on appeal. The whole thing backfired on the tabloid. The public backlash was huge; even The Times ran a famous editorial titled “Who breaks a butterfly on a wheel?” The raid didn’t stop the band, but it did solidify their outlaw status and put a spotlight on the police-media partnership that had targeted them.