An actor who starred in This Is England told a judge he is “living on the breadline” to get out of paying a £75,000 fine drug fine.
Andrew Shim, who played Milky in the 2006 Shane Meadows film and subsequent TV series, admitted trafficking drugs in Spain.
The 39-year-old was caught transporting 60 kilos of cannabis near Granada in October 2020.
He was locked up in a Spanish jail for eight months while he waited for his case to get to court.
But after learning he faced up to five and a half years behind bars, he pleaded guilty on the first day of his trial.
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The actor 'pleaded poverty' and avoided a hefty fine after providing proof he was 'living on the breadline'.
The decision, which follows months of legal wrangling, lifts the threat hanging over his head of more prison time for non-payment.
An insider said: “Andrew Shim can consider himself to be a very lucky man."
Now Nottingham-based Shim has been told he need not pay a single penny of his five-figure fine.
Two accomplices named as Matthew Adam Neale and Michael Regan, were also handed suspended jail sentences after admitting their role in the drugs plot smashed by Spanish police.
American-born Shim shot to fame as a child star when he played the lead role in A Room For Romeo Brass when he was just 15, again directed by Shane Meadows.
But his most famous role is as Milky in Meadows’ This Is England, where he gets badly beaten in a racist attack.
Shim, who is also an MMA fighter, also appeared in Meadows’ Dead Man’s Shoes and 2015 Brit crime movie Anti-Social.
During the Covid pandemic he made a series of “corona diaries” where he chatted with famous pals.
In one video Shim revealed a business venture, which saw him travel across Europe, had been hit hard by the pandemic.
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