Dolores O’Riordan (Cranberries) is having trouble with the police…

Cranberries singer Dolores O’Riordan has pleaded guilty to headbutting and spitting on a police officer after an alleged air rage incident. The performer told officers during her arrest at Shannon Airport in Ireland last year that she was an icon and the Queen of Limerick.

O’Riordan admitted four offences including assault and obstructing a police officer during the incident following a flight from New York’s JFK airport on 10 November. Ennis District Court in Ireland was told she accused an officer of groping and sexually assaulting her during the arrest, a claim which has since been retracted. The court heard O’Riordan has since been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and medics suggested she was suffering from hypomania, sleep deprivation and paranoia at the time.

She threatened to sue arresting officers and told them she paid their wages when they tried to take her out of first class after the flight had landed. In evidence read to the court, Inspector Tom Kennedy said the singer-songwriter’s behaviour was at first erratic, then unruly, irate, threatening, irrational and aggressive.

“Ms O’Riordan was very belligerent,” he told the court.

“She said ‘you are not going to arrest me. I am an icon. I’m the Queen of Limerick, I pay my taxes, I pay your wages. I’m going to sue you’.”

Alcohol was not a factor, the court was told.

O’Riordan, dressed all in black and wearing black sunglasses on her arrival at the courthouse, did not give evidence in person. She was supported for the hearing by her mother Eileen and one of her brothers. Judge Patrick Durcan ordered O’Riordan to write letters of apology to all those affected in the incident while he considers sentencing. The 44-year-old mother of three children aged 18, 14 and 10, who now lives in New York and is back working in the music business, will be sentenced at a date to be fixed next year.

Source: Yahoo Music