PATRICK KENNEDY, a US congressman and the son of Senator Ted Kennedy, pledged last night to seek treatment for addiction to prescribed drugs after a mysterious car accident that he said he could not remember.

Mr Kennedy, 38, who claimed that he was befuddled by medication, crashed into a concrete barrier near Congress early on Thursday. Policemen on the scene later said that they had been ordered not to breathalyse the politician.

At a press conference last night the Democrat congressman, who has struggled with addiction and depression, said that he was immediately checking into the Mayo Clinic, where he already received treatment at the end of last year. After that visit, Mr Kennedy added, he had returned to Congress “reinvigorated and healthy”.

Turning to Thursday’s events, he contradicted his initial lucid account and cited amnesia. “I simply do not remember getting out of bed, being pulled over by the police or being cited for three driving infractions,” he said.

“That’s not how I want to live my life. And that’s not how I want to represent the people of Rhode Island.”

Senator Kennedy issued a supportive statement, expressing pride in his son for acknowledging his problem and taking steps to correct it. “He has taken full responsibility for events that occurred . . . and he will continue to co-operate fully with any investigation,” Senator Kennedy said.

The incident on Thursday drew uncomfortable comparisons with the way authorities dealt with his father’s far more serious accident on Chappaquiddick Island in 1969, which led to the death of a passenger.

Union officials representing the two sergeants who were first at the scene of the accident on Capitol Hill said that they had been ordered not to breathalyse Mr Kennedy.

They also alleged that senior officers who arrived shortly after the accident ordered the two US Capitol Police patrolmen to leave. The senior officers then gave Mr Kennedy a lift home.

The incident began at about 2.45am on Thursday, when Mr Kennedy’s Ford Mustang swerved up First Street near the Capitol, narrowly missed a police vehicle and smashed into a roadside security barrier.

The sergeants’ witness accounts were contained in a letter of complaint written by their union to the chief of the Capitol Police. They said that Mr Kennedy appeared to be staggering when he emerged, uninjured, from the car. Nobody else was in the vehicle.

Lou Cannon, the president of the DC Fraternal Order of Police, told CNN that “the officers believed they detected an odour of alcohol about him”.

Mr Cannon said that in such circumstances a breath test would nearly always be administered. After the officers contacted their watch commander, though, senior officers took over. The union letter read: “These circumstances . . . create the appearance of special favours for someone privileged and powerful.”

The accident comes less than a month after Mr Kennedy crashed his car into another vehicle in Rhode Island. No charges were filed in that incident.

A TROUBLED FAMILY

Edward Kennedy Drove his car off a bridge and into a pond in 1969. The passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne, was killed. Mr Kennedy escaped and did not report the accident to police for several hours. Received two-month suspended sentence

Michael Kennedy Nephew of President John F. Kennedy. Arrested in 1997 for rape after affair with children’s babysitter but not convicted. Died later that year

David Kennedy Nephew of President Kennedy. Robbed trying to buy heroin in 1979. Died of drug overdose

Robert F. Kennedy Jr Nephew of President Kennedy, son of Bobby Kennedy. Arrested in 1983 for heroin possession. Had treatment

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