Procol Harum star a whiter shade of pale after attack

HE CREATED one of the greatest, and most enigmatic, hits of the Sixties called a Whiter Shade of pale. Now procol Harum singer Gary Brooker is at the centre of a bizarre crime story in which he was the hapless victim.

The rock legend claims that a gang of women spiked his drink with a date- rape drug in an attempted mugging which saw him hospitalised for weeks with a severe head injury.

Brooker, 72, was on a tour in South africa in 2012 when the alleged incident took place. at the time, he stated that he had fractured his skull in a fall when alone in a Cape Town hotel room.

But he has now changed his story, claiming that he was persuaded by the South african police to play down what had happened to him during his tour with fellow veteran British groups The Moody Blues and 10cc.

‘I was drugged and mugged by a gang of women and got a fractured skull,’ he tells me.

‘ I don’t know what happened because I was Rohypnoled. You don’t fall asleep with Rohypnol, you just don’t remember anything.

‘I couldn’t get much backing from the South african police. I don’t think they wanted the publicity of a visiting celebrity getting banged on the head. So it all got played down by the locals.

‘as I couldn’t remember anything, it was very hard to make any decision. even the doctor... I asked him: “Was I hit with anything?” He said: “No, you weren’t”. I don’t believe that. It was suggested that I fell down and cracked my head.’

Brooker remained in hospital for three weeks before flying home. ‘I’d only been back a few days when I got a call from the credit card people to say that somebody was trying to use my card at a cash machine in some dodgy suburb of Cape Town.’

Brooker, who is releasing a new 8-Cd procol Harum box- set next month, says he has not been back to South africa and says he never will.

It is not the first time he has felt robbed of justice. Brooker lost a lengthy legal battle over the authorship of a Whiter Shade of pale in 2009. Matthew Fisher, who composed the organ tunes on the track, won a law lords ruling entitling him to future royalites.