Amy Winehouse may get some much-needed respite from her probably-abusive husband, layabout Blake Fielder-Civil. Blake faces up to life in prison after it was revealed by police that he’s under investigation for arranging to interfere with his upcoming trial by paying off the man he is accused of beating up. Yesterday police staged a dramatic raid of Amy’s London home, with JayBird guessing that it was due to drugs. It turns out that super smart JayBird isn’t psychic, because The Sun reports that the raid was related to the trial-fixing charge and has nothing to do with controlled substances.

Skinny Blake and his friend Michael Brown were due in court today to face charges from beating up a barman, James King. Instead his home was raided and he was taken into custody. It is alleged that Blake concocted a scheme to pay £210,000, about $443,000 USD, to the victim in exchange for him dropping the charges and refusing to testify at trial. What’s more is that Blake supposedly hired two guys to take the man to Spain and “babysit” him until he was in the clear.

Instead of doing the job, the two men Blake paid turned on him, and talked to a newspaper about it. The story is a little confusing to me, but the guys Blake hired supposedly had videotape of him and Brown beating up the barman. Either they were friends of his and were taping it, or they just happened to be there and got footage of the incident. Then Blake tried to pay them off by hiring them to cover it up and take the victim out of the country:

A Metropolitan police spokesman said: “A thorough investigation is being carried out into claims of conspiracy to pervert justice in connection with a trial.

“Three men have been arrested and are being questioned. We’re expecting to make further arrests.

The alleged conspiracy is reported to have emerged after two men named ANT and JAY contacted a newspaper in October claiming to be in possession of footage of the alleged attack on King by Fielder-Civil and Brown.

Ant then went on to allege he and Jay were to be paid for organising a deal between King and his claimed attackers and for “babysitting” the barman overseas until charges were dropped.

A film is reported to have been made of King claiming he would withdraw his court statement regarding the alleged attack as soon as £210,000 was deposited into his bank account.

A meeting is reported to have happened behind a seedy boozer in central London where Ant, Jay, Brown and Fielder-Civil thrashed out details of the plot.

After the meeting King is alleged to have appeared on video saying: “Fifth November 2007, I James King hereby without pressure or duress wish to withdraw any legal statements previously made or written concerning the arrest of Blake Fielder-Civil and Michael Brown over the GBH charges relating to my injuries. I have no intention of going to court or helping any further.”

“I feel this is in the best interests of mine and my family’s safety.”

Reports go on to claim flight tickets from London to Marbella were due to be booked yesterday.

However, Ant and Jay were arrested outside a pub yesterday.

Fielder-Civil is due in Snaresbrook Crown Court, East London, with Brown on Monday.

[From The Sun]

That’s serious! It sounds like something a dumb ass young rich guy would do, thinking he could easily make it all go away. Blake is going to be the one going away instead, and it may be for a very long time. It’s bound to hurt Amy at first, but given how obviously difficult her marriage is with Blake, it sounds like a big break for her. Maybe she’ll be able to concentrate fully on her career once the creep is behind bars.

Here’s Amy Winehouse yesterday before the big raid. She went to the post office, to a convenience store, and to her accountants. She was playing hooky from her job that day, and cost her record company $150,000, as JayBird reported earlier, by telling them that she would come to a video shoot momentarily but failing to show up all day. Thanks to Splash News for these pictures.