Pete Doherty's Biography

Pete Doherty was born in March 1979 in Hexham, Northumberland.

His mother was a nurse and his father was a major in the Royal Corps of Signals, which meant that Doherty moved around in his childhood.

He was a talented youngster winning an Arts Council poetry competition and publishing a Queens Park Rangers fanzine, All Quiet on the Western Avenue.

Pete Doherty studied English literature at Queen Mary, University of London, but left within a year.

Doherty met Carl Barat back in 1997 and they shared an east London flat but The Libertines did not release their first single, What a Waster, until June 2002.

However, all was not well with Pete Doherty and his relationship with Carl Barat. Doherty was getting increasingly involved with drugs and various characters that Barat thought were a bad influence on him.

In 2003 when he was ousted from The Libertines, Pete Doherty got sent to prison for stealing a guitar, a laptop and other items from Carl Barat's flat. n spite of this Doherty was reunited with The Libertines, but, according to The Guardian profile of Pete Doherty, when he fled a rehab at a Thai monastery that his manager, Alan McGee, sent him to, he was, in June 2004, once again released from The Libertines.

Doherty was arrested again in possession of a flick-knife and there were more reports of a crack habit.

Nevertheless, Pete Doherty and his new band, Babyshambles were signed by Rough Trade, the Libertines' old record label, and their single Killamangiro entered the top 10.

Neil McCormick in his article Pete Doherty: the inside story reported how in January 2005, the drummer of Babyshambles, Gemma Clarke, quit after shows in which Doherty had fallen asleep or failed to appear at all. Clarke wrote to Doherty, "I could no longer be part of a machine that I feel is destroying you."

Around this time Pete Doherty started dating Kate Moss.

Pete Doherty and Kate Moss would end up having a volatile on/off relationship.

In the summer of 2007 Kate Moss was reported to have broken up with Doherty.

2005 and 2006 saw more arrests of Pete Doherty in connection with drugs and scandal in the press.

Pete Doherty's mother, Jackie, wrote an account of her son's life and how it impacted on her, called Pete Doherty: My Prodigal Son.

In August 2006, in The Times's interview with Jackie Doherty, they reported:

"Meanwhile, she has found some peace in her marriage, aided by Astile, Doherty's three-year-old son by singer Lisa Moorish. Jackie has just had him to stay for a week and when she opened his suitcase found a tiny QPR kit, a present, she assumes, from his daddy. She has only seen her son and grandson together once: Doherty's drug problems mean he has only limited access.

In April 2008, Pete Doherty was jailed for 14 weeks for violating his probation and for using drugs.

Doherty ended up serving 29 days and was released on 6 May 2008.

In May 2011, Pete Doherty was sentenced to prison again for a drugs offence.