Musician Goldie has appeared in court via a video call on a mobile phone from Thailand to plead guilty to assaulting a security guard at the Glastonbury festival.
The 52-year-old was due before Bristol Magistrates’ Court for trial on Thursday but failed to appear and his legal team applied to delay the case in his absence.
After the bid failed, the artist – whose name is Clifford Joseph Price – sent an email saying he would plead guilty to assaulting bouncer Dennis Poole on June 23 last year by beating him.
It read “Yep, guilty as charged”, the court heard.
District Judge Lynne Matthews said she was not happy with the unorthodox move and demanded Price send a formal email confirming he would plead guilty on the full facts of the prosecution case.
At that point, Price, who the court heard was currently based in Thailand, was contacted on FaceTime – a video-calling app on Apple smartphones – and confirmed his name and address to the court.
When asked his nationality, he said he was “very British” and he then confirmed his guilty plea, saying to the judge: “Correct my dear.”
Judge Matthews said she was not Price’s “dear” and that he must appear in court for sentence – or face a warrant for his arrest being issued.
Earlier, the court heard Price had so far failed to attend any of the previous hearings in the case and his barrister Abigail Bache said that was because he had “engagements out of the country for quite large-scale events that he has got contractual obligations to attend” and asked for the trial to take place in May so her client could present his defence of self-defence.
Judge Matthews said: “It may be that he had contractual obligations elsewhere, it may be that they would be expensive to get out of, but then people work and have to come to court as defendants, and it quite often is going to cost them, and I don’t have a separate rule for people who earn rather more than average.”
She refused the application to adjourn the case on the basis of Price’s absence after lengthy legal discussion.
When, more than an hour and a half later, Ms Bache said her client would admit the offence, judge Matthews commented: “I think I want to go outside and cry.” She added that two days of court time had been set aside for the matter.
Mr Price was charged with the assault by beating alongside his daughter, 20-year-old Chance Price.
The pair pleaded not guilty to the offence and the matter was listed for trial.
After Price, whose address was given as of Tring, Hertfordshire, entered his plea, Richard Posner, prosecuting, said he was “clearly the catalyst” of the violence, so it would not be in the public interest to proceed with the case against his daughter.
The court heard the case against Miss Price, of Leavesden, Hertfordshire, would be dropped once her father had been sentenced.
Both Mr Price and his daughter were ordered to appear before the court for sentence on May 30.