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.