| The 16-year-old has been arrested, just months after he was caught in between a bitter custody battle between his parents |
The 16-year-old son of Madonna, 58, and Guy Ritchie, 48, was allegedly caught with the drug in his rucksack in Primrose Hill, north London, after neighbours called police when they spotted him “smoking or doing drugs” in the area.
A source told The Sun newspaper: “Rocco has become a well-known figure in the neighbourhood and not for the right reasons. He’s been repeatedly seen acting suspiciously.
“This incident was the final straw. Local residents are fed up with him acting in this manner and called the police.”
According to sources, Rocco was sat on a wall with a friend when police approached them and the officials noticed traces of cannabis on his clothes.
A Scotland Yard spokesman said: “A 16-year-old has been arrested for possession of cannabis. He was bailed and dealt with by Camden Borough’s Youth Offending Team.”
He is said to have been dealt with under the Triage system, which aims to ensure young people who are arrested for low level offences for the first time are diverted out of the criminal justice system with the use of restorative practice.
As a result, it is not thought he will get a criminal record but may have to attend a number of workshops.
This comes just months after Rocco was caught in between a bitter custody battle between his parents.
In September, they agreed he would remain living with Guy in Fitzrovia, London – just two miles from where he was arrested – and regularly travel to the US to visit his mother.
Madonna has previously described Rocco as a “wild child”.
Writing a birthday message for him, she shared: “Happy Birthday Wild Child! Time waits for no one!! … Once my baby always my baby. Happy Sweet 16! …
“Happy Birthday to my First Born Son! A true Warrior with a beautiful Heart. Let the Sun shine (sic)”
Rocco was 15 during most of the custody battle and at one stage a High Court judge urged the couple to come to an “amicable solution” as soon as possible to avoid any more of teen’s “fast receding days” of childhood being plagued by the disagreement.
Mr. Justice MacDonald said: “I renew, one final time, my plea for both parents to seek and to find an amicable resolution to the dispute between them.
“As I observed during the course of the hearing, summer does not last forever. The boy very quickly becomes the man. It would be a very great tragedy for Rocco if any more of the previous and fast receding days of his childhood were to be taken up by this dispute.”