Former England international Raheem Sterling faces a possible prison sentence after pleading guilty to dangerous driving and possession of nitrous oxide.
Sterling, 31, was behind the wheel of a Lamborghini, inhaling the class C drug from balloons and driving in an “absolutely horrendous” manner, when he careered off a busy road in Hampshire during the morning rush-hour on May 28 this year.
Sterling admitted to the police that “he had a problem” with nitrous oxide after being arrested for the drug-driving crash, a court was told.
The former Manchester City, Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool player — a free agent since leaving Dutch club Feyenoord at the end of last season — will be sentenced at a later hearing after pleading guilty on Tuesday to a series of criminal charges.
In an 80-minute hearing at Basingstoke Magistrates’ court, footage was shown of Sterling being handcuffed and arrested at the crash site after “multiple reports” from worried motorists, including one who raised “genuine concerns that (Sterling) was going to kill someone”.Dashcam video of Raheem Sterling driving
Sterling was found in the passenger’s seat, with two canisters of nitrous oxide on his lap. There were another four in the car, as well as a deflated balloon that he had been using to inhale the drug which was criminalised in 2023. In full view of the arresting officers, he could be seen trying to put them in the back seat.
“Nitrous oxide, commonly known as laughing gas, is stored in canisters,” prosecutor Simon Jones told the court. “It has the impact of slowing brain functions and bodily responses and can cause sensory distortion, including hallucinations … increasing the risk of collisions.”
Standing in the glass-panelled dock, Sterling admitted possessing six 670-gram canisters of nitrous oxide and a charge of dangerous driving, relating to what the prosecution described as a “category 1A offence” — the most serious level in sentencing guidelines — across two motorways, the M25 and M3, before veering off the A327 into a metal gate.
Sterling also pleaded guilty to a separate charge of failing to provide a specimen of breath, having been arrested just after 9am on the day of the crash. Other tests were carried out that showed “serious impairment” and Sterling was said to have told the officers that he had a problem with nitrous oxide.
District judge Kirsty Allman adjourned Sterling’s case to November 25 and told him it would be treated on an “all options” basis, meaning she could not rule out the possibility that it would end up with one of the most successful English footballers of his generation going to prison.
Sterling’s defence team will argue that his early guilty plea should count in his favour and that he could be made the subject of a suspended sentence, meaning he is spared prison unless he reoffends over a set period of time.
However, the prosecution’s case is that Sterling’s offending ticked seven out of ten boxes for aggravating features in relation to cases of dangerous driving. These include the prolonged length of time, the danger to other people and the persistent use of a prohibited drug.
The court was told that the first 999 call from the M25 was made at 7.45am by a motorist, Christopher Jennings, who followed Sterling for 30 minutes during a time of the morning when the motorway, on the outskirts of London, was so busy it was operating at a reduced 40mph speed limit. Sterling was seen inhaling from a balloon while “swerving within the lanes, weaving from the far left to the far right, and going so close to the white lines that other vehicles had to brake or move over to avoid a crash.”
Sterling spent the second half of last season at FeyenoordPieter Stam de Jonge / ANP / AFP via Getty Images
Over the next 67 minutes, other 999 calls were made to alert three different police forces — the Metropolitan (London), Thames Valley and Surrey — that there was a driver out of control and openly inhaling from balloons.
One motorist, Fiona Jennings, rang the police at 8.45am on the M3 and described Sterling’s driving as “absolutely horrendous, recklessly undercutting and swerving in and out lanes”. She observed Sterling inhaling from a balloon. She described it as so big that she thought at first the airbag had been deployed.
With the balloon impairing Sterling’s view, other motorists had to hang back or take emergency action to avoid something more serious happening, the court was told. Some drivers put on their hazard signs to warn others as Sterling repeatedly went into the central reservation, causing stones and dust to fly into the air.
The final call to the police was made at 8.52am and shortly afterwards Sterling lost control of his car, crashing off the road and hitting the metal barriers with enough force to burst three of the tyres on his £270,000 car.
“Stop tensing up,” the officer tells him in the footage, handcuffing his hands behind his back.
“I’m not tensing up,” Sterling replies.
Other evidence made it clear that Sterling had also been driving “erratically” in the early hours of the morning. The first 999 call, the court was told, was actually made at 1.10am after he was seen entering the drive-through of the McDonald’s in Hayes, north London, “at excessive speed” and inhaling a balloon while apparently waiting for his food.
Jones, prosecuting, described it as “important context and background” because it showed that, seven hours before the first reports of dangerous driving, there was already “clear concern of impairment through consumption of an implicit drug”. Sterling admitted to the police that he had inhaled the drug at 11pm the previous night.
The winger was taken to Basingstoke police station, where he told the officers that “he had not slept all night and was tired and confused”. During a heatwave, with temperatures topping 30 degrees Celsius, he complained about feeling cold and seemed, to one police officer, “quiet, withdrawn and lethargic”, showing signs of being impaired. Sterling’s barrister, Jason Bartfeld KC, said his client was cold because of the air conditioning.
Sterling’s appearance in court comes during a difficult period in his professional life that has left him — a footballer who has twice appeared in the top 15 of the Ballon d’Or voting — without a club and no obvious future in the sport that has shaped his life.
Sterling’s 82 appearances for England took in three World Cups and a place in UEFA’s team of the tournament at the European Championship in 2021. He won four Premier League titles with Manchester City and, in his younger years at Liverpool, the Golden Boy award as the world’s best young player. Other awards and trophies have followed, including an MBE in the Queen’s 2021 birthday honours list for services to racial equality.
No details were supplied in court about what had led to Sterling taking nitrous oxide or whether there was a direct link to the deterioration of his career. There was no prolonged mitigation either. However, his legal team has supplied a file to the judge, including a number of references from Sterling’s former colleagues in football.
Sterling, who has no previous convictions, was issued with an interim driving ban and was told that the matter may yet be deemed so serious it is moved to Winchester Crown Court, which has higher sentencing powers.
Source: nytimes.com
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