REM star cleared of drunken rampage

Rock star Peter Buck was today cleared of ‘‘ransacking’’ a first class cabin during a drunken airborne rampage.

The 45-year old REM guitarist, who was accused of attacking cabin staff during hours of allegedly ‘‘loutish behaviour’’, blamed a pre-takeoff sleeping pill for transforming him into a mindless ‘‘automaton’’.

The millionaire father-of-two, described by his wife, fellow celebrities and other friends as the ‘‘politest, gentlest’’ person imaginable, said the tablet turned most of the 10-hour Seattle to Heathrow flight last April into a mental blank.

A jury at Isleworth Crown Court in west London found him not guilty of being drunk on a plane, assaulting an air stewardess and a cabin services director and of causing criminal damage to British Airways’ property.

Buck sighed audibly and wiped his brow as the jury, which had deliberated for five-and-a-half hours, returned its verdicts.