NINE MONTHS FOR DRUG CASE TV STAR

THE downfall of the former London's Burning star John Alford was
completed yesterday when he was jailed for nine months for supplying
cocaine and cannabis.

The disgraced actor, sacked from the ITV series when his involvement
with drugs was disclosed, was caught on camera clinching a deal with
an undercover tabloid journalist posing as Arab royalty.

Alford, 27, who has described himself as "the biggest mug on the
planet", seemed resigned to his fate at Snaresbrook Crown Court in
London.

Judge Stephen Robbins said: "You were undoubtedly motivated by the
desire to earn even more money than you were earning as a successful
actor, believing you would be opening a nightclub in Dubai. There was
a strong element of entrapment, but you willingly went along with the
idea. You had plenty of opportunity when you left - to fetch these
drugs, to distance yourself from it."

He also reminded the actor that he had told the court of seeing
friends "go down the road to hell from this drug [cocaine]".

The judge said: "People in such circumstances who then agree to supply
that very same drug can and should expect little mercy from the courts."

Alford was jailed for nine months for supplying 2,037 grams of cocaine
to a News of the World's investigator in August 1997, with a two-month
term to run concurrently for a similar count involving 11.9 grams of
cannabis resin.

The actor will have to pay UKP3,000 towards prosecution costs, as well
as meet a UKP300 confiscation order - the money given to him by the
reporter to buy the drugs - or face a further 14 days in prison.

Earlier, David Etherington, QC, defending, said promises of big-time
film contacts and a "cave of other treasures" resulted in "formidable
temptation" for someone the News of the World regarded as a "child".

The whole package, said the barrister, was "clever, cynical, made to
order" and "rather sickening".

Mr Etherington told the court that "any right-thinking person would
have some feeling of revulsion about the manner and the casualness"
with which those involved in his client's downfall had discussed his
destruction shortly before his arrival at the Savoy hotel.

He added: "Perhaps the public, having had an excess of these sort of
cases in recent weeks, are beginning to question quite what is going
on in these sort of operations and whether they are quite so much in
the public good as they are told."