Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know.

My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds.

As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices.

What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars,

poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples.

If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds.

You're listening to the Witness History Podcast from the BBC World Service.

In June 1967, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones

went on trial in England for drugs offences.

I'm Vincent Dowd and I've dug out material from the archives

to take us back to a time when the British establishment

felt threatened by the country's new young celebrities and decided to teach them a lesson. The Rolling Stones drugs raid of February 1967 is a very British story.

It began with a farcical error made by a national newspaper. It featured high drama at a big house in the country,

and it ended with the ruling class taking fright at a nation in the grip of change.

This ladies and gentlemen is London.

Swinging London it's been called, though some people might find a different adjective. Social rebels have taken over in what seems more like an

invasion than a revolution.

In the mid-1960s a new breed of celebrity had the confidence to defy the older generation. In London the young elite relaxed

in clubs such as Blazers in Kensington. A Sunday tabloid newspaper went there too, hoping

to discover drug-addled rock stars talking indiscreetly, but seemingly unaware

what Mick Jagger looked like.

The News of the World, Sunday the 5th of February, 1967.

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