Winehouse in-laws: 'If you don't get help, you'll die'

On the rollercoaster ride that is Amy Winehouse's life, it is usually her own behaviour - or that of her bad boy husband - that gets her pride of place in the headlines.

Yesterday, however, it was the turn of her parents and in-laws to take the spotlight as the families of both Winehouse and Blake Fielder-Civil were drawn into a very public spat over the couple's controversial lifestyle.

The two sets of parents came to verbal blows over how to deal with their offspring's drug problems, with a row erupting after the singer's in-laws urged fans to stop buying her records as a message that the couple's behaviour was unacceptable. And they called on Ms Winehouse's record company to do more to stop the pair taking drugs.

But the singer's father, Mitch Winehouse, dismissed their suggestion fans should boycott his daughter's albums as "clutching at straws".

The Brit-award winner was admitted to hospital earlier this month after a reported overdose of heroin, ecstasy, cocaine, ketamine and alcohol.

Only recently, Ms Winehouse cancelled a string of performances after newpaper pictures showed her covered in injuries after quitting rehab with her husband.

She was spotted with blood-soaked ballet shoes, bruises to her neck, bandages on her arms and make-up smeared down her face while Mr Fielder-Civil had scratches covering his face and neck.

Yesterday, his father Giles Fielder-Civil told the Victoria Derbyshire programme on Radio Five Live: "Why don't the record company do more? We believe the record company should be proactive in helping the couple get better. At the moment they seem to be hiding behind a label that the pair aren't drug addicts, they're exhausted or whatever."

He continued: "There are a lot of people that surround the couple who do have a vested interest."

Insisting they had tried to contact the company but not received a reply, he added: "Perhaps it's time to stop buying records. It's a possibility... by doing that, that affects the record company and the record company may take notice."

Blake's mother Georgette insisted: "I think they both need to get medical help, before one of them, if not both of them, eventually will die."

To which her husband added: "We are concerned that if one of them dies, the other will die. They are a very close couple, and if one dies through substance abuse, the other may commit suicide."

He called for Winehouse's contract to cease until she recovered or for music executives to force the couple to enter a rehabilitation unit "where they can't leave until they sort themselves out".

But after the interview, Ms Winehouse's father rang the show to retaliate, insisting a meeting with doctors had been arranged a day after the pair left rehab to which Mr and Mrs Fielder-Civil were invited.

"They came down to London. But instead of coming to that meeting to sit with the doctors and with me and representatives of the record company, they chose to go to the pub with Amy and Blake," claimed Mr Winehouse. "This is the problem we are up against. We have two families pulling in different directions. We just want the same things, we want our children to be safe. But we've got different definitions of how we can do that."

He continued: "There's no question of the record company or her family trying to work her to the bone. These are some of the accusations that have been levelled at us."

Both families were "living through hell" but he said: "It's no good blaming anybody else. This is Blake's fault and Amy's fault."

But refusing to buy her records would do no good, he insisted. "People are clutching at straws. There's only one way out of this, and anyone with drug experience will tell you, the only way out is not sectioning them, not locking them up; at some point they are going to reach rock bottom, and at that point they will say, I don't want to do that any more."

Island Records would not comment on the issue.