Posted on 11/22/2001 3:10:38 AM PST by Happygal
BRITAIN: The music producer and television presenter, Jonathan King, who "exploited his celebrity" to abuse teenage boys, began a seven-year sentence yesterday after his conviction for a series of sexual assaults.
King (56), who found fame in the 1960s with the song Everyone's Gone to the Moon and presented the BBC music programme Entertainment USA, will appeal against his conviction of six offences of indecent assault, buggery and attempted buggery against five boys aged 14 to 16 years old.
The offences took place between 1983 and 1989 and King's name will be added to the Sex Offenders' Register and he is banned for life from working with children.
He was convicted of the five charges in September, but reporting restrictions on the trial were only lifted yesterday after the Crown Prosecution Service indicated it would not be proceeding with two other trials relating to sexual offences involving five other teenage boys.
The charges were left on file and as a result of lifting the restrictions it also emerged that King was acquitted on two charges of sexual assault earlier this month after the collapse of another trial.
Sentencing King at the Old Bailey, Mr Justice Paget, told him he had used his celebrity status in order to abuse young boys at his Bayswater flat and other locations.
"You used your fame and success to attract impressionable, adolescent boys. This was a serious breach of trust you inflicted emotional and psychological damage to each of these five complainants," Judge Paget said.
Insisting he was innocent, King issued a statement in which he warned other celebrities they could become the targets of a "witchunt" by "deluded" fans who invented stories "without any factual corroboration and blackmail or accuse people of imagined historical offences"
However, a different picture of the celebrity from that of the popular, outgoing figure who entertained audiences for 40 years, emerged during the trial. The court was told all but one of the five boys, now aged in their 30s, were assaulted on more than one occasion and that King often lured boys back to his flat by telling them he needed their help to carry out research into the music industry.
On his own admission he invited "thousands" of teenagers to his home for the research into youth trends and police fear he used this as cover to molest several more teenage boys.
The boys were usually in London on a day trip or holiday with their families when King met them in the West End and he would ask them if they recognised him as a presenter on television shows such as Top of the Pops.
One of King's victims was 14 years old when he met him in Soho in 1983. The boy went with King to a 'peep' show where the presenter assaulted him and then told him he could have sex with one of his girlfriends if he came back to his flat.
At the flat King put on a porn video and then sexually assaulted the boy. After the assault King gave the boy a copy of his latest book and a record and then drove him back to Trafalgar Square where he gave him £40 sterling.
I never liked him growing up. Always thought there was something kinda creepy about him.
``Celebrity saw self as 'God like''
By Rachel Donnelly
BRITAIN: With his trademark baseball cap, large glasses and over-the-top personality, Jonathan King was the classic self-promoter in a music industry obsessed with fame and the hottest trends.
He saw himself as "strikingly handsome, veering towards God-like," with a gift for "knowing what the public want" and he pursued his love of music with a drive he put down to the fact that his American father died when he was only 12 years old.
With fame as music promoter and television personality came money, a Rolls Royce and properties in Britain and the US. But it was his celebrity, the Old Bailey heard, that he exploited to lure young men to his Bayswater flat in London where he abused them.
Educated at Charterhouse and Trinity College, Cambridge, won fame at 21 when he recorded his first number one hit, Everyone's Gone to the Moon in 1965.
A year later, King was appointed manager of Decca Records and by the age of 25 he had founded his own label, UK Records, which he described as "the most lucrative independent record company of all time".
As well as producing a cover of Bob Dylan's Just Like a Woman, King claimed to have had 20 records in the Top 30 under 20 different aliases during the 1970s, including Loop di Love by Shag and Satisfaction by Bubblerock.
At UK Records he managed the group 10CC and he promoted Genesis and the Bay City Rollers. But after a brief foray into politics in 1978, when he stood unsuccessfully as an independent in the Epsom by-election, King turned to television.
In the 1980s he devised and presented the popular Entertainment USA, and co-presented the music show, No Limits. Asked to revive The Brit Awards show and improve the selection of entrants for the Song for Europe contest, in 1997 he was named by the British Phonographic Industry as "Man of the Year".
Hey's it's better deal than "Better put some ice on that"
Sick SOB
I hope mr. king will learn the true meaning of this word in the near future. P.O.S.
To ALL: Forgive me for posting this.
Something homosexual men do to other men (or boys, as it were). I'm not sure if the Brits consider it buggery if a man does it to a woman.
GAG!
Looks like this prevert was just a little before his time.
If the drive succeeds, a significant number of pedophiles will be instantly transformed into healthy homosexuals as if by magic.
It is amazing what a little bit of legislative action can accomplish. Gay activists in this country are also aware of that power.
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