Redlands — the Keith Richards drugs raid

Redlands is a sixteenth-century thatched farmhouse in West Wittering on the West Sussex coast, purchased by Keith Richards in 1966 and still his English home. On February 12, 1967, while a party of friends including Mick Jagger, Marianne Faithfull, and the art dealer Robert Fraser was taking place at the house, nineteen police officers arrived with a search warrant and conducted a raid based on a tip from the News of the World. Drug paraphernalia was found; Jagger, Richards, and Fraser were arrested and charged.

The subsequent trial became a cause célèbre of the counter-culture. Jagger and Richards were convicted — Richards for allowing his premises to be used for cannabis smoking, Jagger for possession of amphetamine tablets — and sentenced to prison. Both were freed on appeal within days. The Times published an editorial by William Rees-Mogg headlined "Who Breaks a Butterfly on a Wheel?" that argued the sentences were disproportionate and reflected establishment persecution of a cultural movement rather than genuine law enforcement. The editorial is often cited as one of the more significant acts of media advocacy in British post-war culture.

The Redlands raid and its aftermath cemented the Rolling Stones as symbols of a generational conflict that went far beyond their music, and produced the song "We Love You" — released as a single in August 1967 — which was explicitly a response to the trial. The legend of a Mars bar being found in compromising circumstances during the raid is almost certainly false, invented by police or journalists; it has nonetheless been part of the Redlands story ever since. The house in West Wittering is private; Richards continues to use it.