Kasabian Tom’s ‘horror’ at drunken attack on partner
FORMER Kasabian frontman Tom Meighan has said the attack on his girlfriend that saw him kicked out of the band was a ‘fight’ – adding: ‘I took the brunt of it.’
The 39-year-old singer was given an 18-month community order and 200 hours of unpaid work by Leicester magistrates in July after admitting an assault on Vikki Ager in which he pushed her into a hamster cage and threatened her with a pallet.
‘We had too much to drink. I regret everything that happened that night – what I can remember of it,’ Meighan told the Cornish Guardian.
‘I don’t condone it – it’s horrific. I love my partner to pieces. I was at a boiling point in my life – I didn’t know where things were heading.
‘I was drowning myself with drink because of my problems and things going on around me.’
The couple are still together and were in Cornwall to meet Meighan’s management team with plans for a solo record next year. Ms Ager, his partner of four-and-a-half years, said Meighan ‘is not a violent man’.
She wants support for the singer, who has been in rehab.
‘He apologises daily. He really does,’ she said. ‘I gave as good as I got. We were both fighting.
‘We were really drunk and I don’t normally drink. It was more of a squabble, it wasn’t domestic violence.’
Meighan started Kasabian with friends Serge Pizzorno and Chris Edwards in 1997 but was asked to leave the group.
‘I can’t say if the band will ever get back together again,’ he said. ‘It’s raw – it’s like a wounded animal.’