SCION OF THE KENNEDYS ADMITS TO DRUG HABIT AFTER CRASH

Police Allege There Was A Cover-Up Of An Accident About Which The
Congressman Can Remember Nothing

PATRICK KENNEDY, a US congressman and the son of Senator Ted Kennedy,
pledged last night to seek treatment for addiction to prescribed
drugs after a mysterious car accident that he said he could not remember.

Mr Kennedy, 38, who claimed that he was befuddled by medication,
crashed into a concrete barrier near Congress early on Thursday.
Policemen on the scene later said that they had been ordered not to
breathalyse the politician.

At a press conference last night the Democrat congressman, who has
struggled with addiction and depression, said that he was immediately
checking into the Mayo Clinic, where he already received treatment at
the end of last year. After that visit, Mr Kennedy added, he had
returned to Congress "reinvigorated and healthy".

Turning to Thursday's events, he contradicted his initial lucid
account and cited amnesia. "I simply do not remember getting out of
bed, being pulled over by the police or being cited for three driving
infractions," he said.

"That's not how I want to live my life. And that's not how I want to
represent the people of Rhode Island."

Senator Kennedy issued a supportive statement, expressing pride in
his son for acknowledging his problem and taking steps to correct it.
"He has taken full responsibility for events that occurred . . . and
he will continue to co-operate fully with any investigation," Senator
Kennedy said.

The incident on Thursday drew uncomfortable comparisons with the way
authorities dealt with his father's far more serious accident on
Chappaquiddick Island in 1969, which led to the death of a passenger.

Union officials representing the two sergeants who were first at the
scene of the accident on Capitol Hill said that they had been ordered
not to breathalyse Mr Kennedy.

They also alleged that senior officers who arrived shortly after the
accident ordered the two US Capitol Police patrolmen to leave. The
senior officers then gave Mr Kennedy a lift home.

The incident began at about 2.45am on Thursday, when Mr Kennedy's
Ford Mustang swerved up First Street near the Capitol, narrowly
missed a police vehicle and smashed into a roadside security barrier.

The sergeants' witness accounts were contained in a letter of
complaint written by their union to the chief of the Capitol Police.
They said that Mr Kennedy appeared to be staggering when he emerged,
uninjured, from the car. Nobody else was in the vehicle.

Lou Cannon, the president of the DC Fraternal Order of Police, told
CNN that "the officers believed they detected an odour of alcohol about him".

Mr Cannon said that in such circumstances a breath test would nearly
always be administered. After the officers contacted their watch
commander, though, senior officers took over. The union letter read:
"These circumstances . . . create the appearance of special favours
for someone privileged and powerful."

The accident comes less than a month after Mr Kennedy crashed his car
into another vehicle in Rhode Island. No charges were filed in that incident.

A Troubled Family

Edward Kennedy Drove his car off a bridge and into a pond in 1969.
The passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne, was killed. Mr Kennedy escaped and
did not report the accident to police for several hours. Received
two-month suspended sentence

Michael Kennedy Nephew of President John F. Kennedy. Arrested in 1997
for rape after affair with children's babysitter but not convicted.
Died later that year

David Kennedy Nephew of President Kennedy. Robbed trying to buy
heroin in 1979. Died of drug overdose

Robert F. Kennedy Jr Nephew of President Kennedy, son of Bobby
Kennedy. Arrested in 1983 for heroin possession. Had treatment