Actor in race case is sectioned

The sentencing of a film star who racially abused his ex-girlfriend has been adjourned after he was sectioned under the Mental Health Act.

James Howson, the 24-year-old who in the 2011 movie of Emily Bronte's classic novel Wuthering Heights was the first black actor to play Heathcliff, was due to appear at Leeds Magistrates' Court yesterday for sentencing after he pleaded guilty to the racially aggravated harassment of Shakira Ramdihal.

But the case was adjourned after the court heard that he had been sectioned in a hospital in Newcastle. He will be sentenced in Leeds on 26 March.