Chef Marco Pierre White’s son has been jailed for a year-and-a-half after going on a drug-fuelled crime rampage.
Chef Marco Pierre White’s son has been jailed for a year-and-a-half after going on a drug-fuelled crime rampage
Marco Junior, 27, who first went to rehab aged 16, admitted shoplifting, possessing a knife, carrying heroin and racially aggravated disorderly behaviour during a 15-month period.
He was jailed on Monday (22.08.22) for more than 18 months, the Bristol Post reported.
Marco Jr had already been sentenced to 11 months behind bars, with 32 weeks of a previously suspended jail term to run consecutively.
A court was told the former ‘Big Brother’ contestant has been struggling with heroin addiction from the age of 18 and during his crime spree he stole clothes worth £2,496 from upmarket equestrian shop Wadswick Country Store, racially abused a Tesco Express security guard and shoplifted alcohol from a Waitrose branch.
He also stole a Mulberry credit card holder, dishwasher tablets, Rayban sunglasses and more booze from a newsagents.
A judge at Bristol Crown Court heard Marco was having a rough time on remand, apparently due to his dad’s fame.
Catherine Flint, mitigating, said: “His dad is well-known and known to be wealthy.
“He (Marco) has suffered bullying, intimidation, extortion, threats of violence and actual violence.
“He is finding it incredibly difficult in prison. He is terrified at the thought of ever having to go back.”
Marco Junior has been addicted to class A substances since the age of 18, the court heard.
He has detoxed in jail, despite being offered drugs by other inmates, Miss Flint added, and said he is “deeply ashamed” of the racist language he used in one incident involving the Tesco guard.
Jailing Marco Jr, judge Mark Horton said: “It is addiction that causes intelligent people, from good backgrounds, who had every prospect, to cheat, lie and steal on a regular basis with a complete incapacity to stop doing so.”
Marco Jr once said he blew £250,000 of his world famous dad’s money on “prostitutes, cocaine and alcohol” in three months.
Four days after his exit from ‘Big Brother’ he appeared in court to answer a drug driving charge from April 2016.
In 2018, he announced he was attending AA meetings but in January 2019 he was convicted and fined after using racist and homophobic slurs as police tried to arrest him for being drunk and disorderly at a train station.
The same year he was ordered to pay more than £1,000 for running out on a £27 restaurant bill after his debit card was declined.
He had a brief period out of trouble when he became a father to daughter Arabella Rose in November 2019, but the following year he was again arrested for allegedly stealing a £40 mobile phone.
Tagged in Marco Pierre White