Envoy’s drug addict son stole from mother

AN AMBASSADOR’S son who worked as a ski instructor in the Alps to help overcome his drug addiction stole nearly £10,000 from his mother to fund his habit, a court has heard.

Benjamin Fretwell, the 50-year-old son of Sir John Emsley Fretwell, a retired diplomat, and his wife Mary, has been battling a decadelong addiction to crack cocaine and heroin, Hammersmith Magistrates’ Court was told.

While he was staying at his parents’ £2.5 million Kensington apartment, he stole his mother’s credit card to make cash withdrawals of £9,484.93.

Magistrate Robert Westlake sentenced him to eight weeks in prison, suspended for 12 months, and ordered him to complete 200 hours community service. The court heard his mother had called the police in order to get help for her son, “not to see him prosecuted or sent to prison”.

Lady Fretwell OBE and her daughter attended court to support Fretwell. His father, Sir John, was British ambassador to France between 1982 and 1987.

Duncan Jones, defending, told the court Fretwell usually spent the winter working in the Alps as a ski instructor and then went to France and Spain to look after his family’s houses.

“There, he doesn’t take drugs,” he said. “The problems are when he is here, in London under bad influences. He is talented in his role of a ski instructor and that keeps him clean for the majority of the year.”

Robert Simpson, prosecuting, told the court: “This was an opportunistic act by a man in the grip of an addiction to drugs. There was an overwhelming temptation when he saw his mother’s bank card. His addiction consumed his thoughts and actions and he descended into a £300 a day drug habit.”

Fretwell is undergoing a drug rehab programme financed by his parents at a private clinic.

He intends to sell his flat in Pimlico, central London, and use the proceeds to repay his mother.