Pete Doherty spent the night in Wormwood Scrubs last night at the start of a 14-week sentence for breaching a probation order.

The Babyshambles frontman, youth icon and former boyfriend of Kate Moss has been fighting well-publicised drug problems since before he was thrown out of his first band, the Libertines, for his erratic behaviour five years ago.

A planned show at the Royal Albert Hall later this month has been cancelled but a rumoured appearance at Glastonbury in June is still expected to go ahead.

Doherty, 29, will be automatically released after serving half his sentence and could be out of prison in a month if granted an earlier release under the End of Custody License scheme.

He has been in an out-of-court in recent months in connection with his drug use. In October last year he received a four-month suspended sentence after admitting driving illegally while in possession of crack cocaine, heroin, ketamine and cannabis. A few days earlier, in a different court, he had been praised for the progress he was making in his struggle against addiction.

Yesterday he was sentenced at West London Magistrates’ Court in front of District Judge Davinder Lachhar.

The judge said that the singer was to be punished for his breach of time-keeping, noncompliance of his order (missing appointments with probation officers) and using different drugs.

A statement from Doherty’s record company, Parlophone Records, said that all tickets for the cancelled Albert Hall show would be valid for a resched-uled concert once the date has been announced. “Peter was very much looking forward to the show and would like to offer his sincerest apologies to all his fans and to all those concerned.”

This is not the first time that Doherty has been behind bars.

In February 2006, Doherty spent several days in Pentonville prison after being charged with possessing drugs. He was later released with a 12-month community order.

A year earlier, in February 2005, he spent four nights in the same prison after being charged with robbery and blackmail. The charges were later dropped.

And in September 2003, Doherty was given a six-month jail sentence after admitting burgling the home of his former Libertines bandmate, Carl Barat.

Doherty is currently working on a solo album, building on a successful two-night residency at the Hackney Empire last year that fuelled hopes that he might have a long-term future as a functioning performer.

Babyshambles’ second album, Shotter’s Nation, was well received by critics in September last year but Doherty’s apparently impregnable appeal to his fans was built in his Libertines years.

He and Barat met as students in 1996 and bonded over shared passions for Tony Hancock, the Smiths and the Clash.

Although they made only two albums together – Up the Bracket and The Libertines – their style helped to shape the British indie rock revival that has produced bands such as Razorlight, Franz Ferdinand and Kaiser Chiefs.

They would often perform in front of a handful of enthusiasts in flats around London, anticipating the trend for bands to develop a more intimate relationship with their fans that later helped to speed the meteoric rise of artists such as Arctic Monkeys and Lily Allen.

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