The day that Keith Moon was charged with murder
Sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll and the money to be made in music has meant that it is never far away from crime and controversy. Hell, you can’t make it through a single awards ceremony without some skirmish arising, so it perhaps isn’t all that surprising that the annuls of pop culture are scattered with stories of musicians either being embroiled with murder cases or convicted of the act. The wayward ways of Keith Moon always lent themselves to such a tragedy.
Pete Townshend once recalled: “Keith Moon, God rest his soul, once drove his car through the glass doors of a hotel, driving all the way up to the reception desk, got out and asked for the key to his room.” This should have been a worrying portent that ‘antics’ were being pushed a little too far – in modern times this seems incongruous with cancel culture, serving to put the term in a more favourable light – but back in the era of rock ‘n’ roll, this was, unfortunately accepted.
Thus, Keith Moon’s highwire ways are well-documented. In fact, he was almost murdered himself when he made an impromptu helicopter trip to Oliver Reed’s house, only for Reed to try and blast the unexpected chopper from the sky with a shotgun while standing on his roof in nothing but a bathrobe. His life would also become a paradigm of how the sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll attitude of the music industry can go too far.
In 1970, after a night in a pub in Hatfield, Hertfordshire, Moon’s car was barricaded by a group of local skinheads who took issue with his flamboyant ways. Moon’s chauffeur Neil Boland exited the vehicle to try and calm matters while Moon remained inside. The drummer later panicked, fearing the baying mob would attack him, and in an attempt to ensure his party could get away from the situation he got behind the wheel and forced the car through the crowd, despite being drunk and without a license or insurance.
However, tragically, as he drove forward, unbeknownst to those in the car, Boland had become trapped under the vehicle. As Moon subsequently sped away, Boland was dragged along the street. He died in hospital later that night.
Moon was initially charged with Boland’s death along with several driving charges. Ultimately, he was cleared as the death was deemed accidental, but he was still found guilty of the driving offences. The judge declared in court documents: “You had no choice but to act the way you did and no moral culpability is attached to you.”
It would be a tragic event in Moon’s short life that haunted him until his own death at the all-too-young age of 32. As we look back at the event over 50 years later, it sadly falls in line with his rollercoaster career, seeming devoid of precaution, and a life punctuated by tragedy.
