Pop star George Michael has been released from prison after four weeks.
Michael (47) was freed from Highpoint Prison in Suffolk after serving time for crashing his Range Rover while high on cannabis.
The former Wham! star, whose real name is Georgios Panayiotou, was jailed on September 14th after he admitted driving while unfit through drugs and possessing two cannabis cigarettes when he appeared at London’s Highbury Corner Magistrates’ Court.
Michael was also banned from driving for five years and was ordered to pay a £1,250 fine, £100 costs and a £15 victim surcharge.
Speaking outside his north London home to reporters, the singer said: "I'm coming out here on my own so that you realise I'm going to start again."
Earlier this month, he told fans from prison: "In the last three weeks, there have been no tears, no anxiety, no bullying - in fact, not so much as a sleepless night for me."
"On the contrary, I've been treated with kindness by fellow inmates and prison staff alike."
At his trial, the court heard Michael was also convicted of driving while unfit through drugs after he was found collapsed in his Mercedes in October 2006.
He was banned from driving for two years and sentenced to 100 hours of community service, to be carried out within 12 months, when he was sentenced for that offence in June 2007 at Brent Magistrates’ Court, north London.
District Judge Perkins told him today he had taken a “dangerous and unpredictable mix” of prescription drugs and cannabis.
Michael’s jail sentence is the culmination of a long line of clashes with the law for the singer, who has been open about his use of cannabis and has claimed in the past that he was trying to cut down.
He has been cautioned for drugs possession, questioned over several minor accidents and, famously, fined for “engaging in a lewd act” in a California public toilet.
In the latest incident Michael was held in Hampstead, north west London, in the early hours of July 4th.
He was arrested shortly before 4am when two police officers found him apparently unconscious in his grey Range Rover in Rosslyn Hill, Hampstead.
He appeared to try to get the car back in gear when he was roused by one officer banging on his window.
When he got out of the car the officers found he was soaked with sweat, breathing heavily and had to be held up. When told he had crashed into a shop, added: “No I didn’t. I didn’t crash into anything.”
Michael was handcuffed, arrested and driven back to Hampstead police station here he failed a test to find whether he was fit to drive. He had not been drinking.
Michael admitted smoking a “small quantity” of cannabis about 10pm the previous evening and said he also took a newly-prescribed sedative to help him sleep.
He told police he decided to drive between his homes in Highgate and Hampstead to meet a friend on the spur of the moment and forgot he had taken the sedative.
Agencies