A Radio 1 DJ has been jailed for four years in Dubai after admitting to possession of cannabis as he entered the country.
Grooverider, whose real name is Raymond Bingham, was given the sentence for drug possession in the United Arab Emirates after his lawyers unsuccessfully argued that his ignorance of local laws justified a pardon.
The DJ was arrested at Dubai airport on 23 November last year with 2.16g of cannabis in his pocket, which has a street value of about £10, three hours before he was due to play an hour-long set at a show in The Lodge, a nightclub. In court he claimed: "I forgot I had them in my trousers."
Drugs are strictly outlawed in the Gulf state, which is visited by more than a million Britons every year, many of them of Asian ethnic heritage. Highly sensitive new technology has recently been installed in Dubai airport to enforce the zero-tolerance code.
The Foreign Office says that nine British nationals have already been detained in Dubai so far this year, while 57 were detained on drug-related charges last year.
Grooverider is likely to be deported after serving his sentence. Together with Fabio, his close friend and colleague, he was involved early on in the transfer of drum '*' bass from a little-known niche genre into one of the more commercially successful and mainstream forms of dance music.
After making their reputations at illegal raves in the late 1980s and on the pirate radio station Phase One, the pair won residencies at club nights in venues such as Heaven in London. Grooverider is also known as a recording artist and record label-owner in his own right. He runs Prototype Recordings.
Feb. 20, 2008 - Grooverider sentenced to four years on Cannabis charge.
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