John
10-20-2009, 07:20 PM
The 26-year-old has been clean for a year and Mitch Winehouse said he did not feel any sense of guilt about her troubled life with drugs.
"It's not been difficult at all for her to come back to our family - Amy has always been part of our family, she's just somebody who's been very ill," he said.
Mitch, 58, also claimed recreational drug users are committing criminal offences so they can go into rehab.
Addressing the Home Affairs Select Committee, Mitch said he had interviewed a number of families for a new documentary about drug abuse, adding: "Anecdotally people are definitely committing offences so they can have a chance, and it's only a chance, of receiving treatment."
He continued: "The biggest impact on families is that there is very little help available to them, especially if their relative is a non-offending addict.
"The problem that we have found in our research in London is that there is a period of a year before any treatment can be given. It's very difficult, and the reason for this is the majority of funding is taken up by the criminal justice system.
"This happened to my son-in-law (Amy Winehouse's estranged husband, Blake Fielder-Civil) when, as part of his sentence, the judge offered him a period in residential rehab.
"So we have a situation where a non-offending addict and his family are looking for help and there are very few resources available to them."
"It's not been difficult at all for her to come back to our family - Amy has always been part of our family, she's just somebody who's been very ill," he said.
Mitch, 58, also claimed recreational drug users are committing criminal offences so they can go into rehab.
Addressing the Home Affairs Select Committee, Mitch said he had interviewed a number of families for a new documentary about drug abuse, adding: "Anecdotally people are definitely committing offences so they can have a chance, and it's only a chance, of receiving treatment."
He continued: "The biggest impact on families is that there is very little help available to them, especially if their relative is a non-offending addict.
"The problem that we have found in our research in London is that there is a period of a year before any treatment can be given. It's very difficult, and the reason for this is the majority of funding is taken up by the criminal justice system.
"This happened to my son-in-law (Amy Winehouse's estranged husband, Blake Fielder-Civil) when, as part of his sentence, the judge offered him a period in residential rehab.
"So we have a situation where a non-offending addict and his family are looking for help and there are very few resources available to them."