30 years in jail for sex abuse R&B star R Kelly

SINGER R Kelly was last night jailed for 30 years for running a decades-long ‘sex cult’ where he recruited underage girls and boys for abuse.

The 90s R&B star behind hits like I Believe I Can Fly was told by a judge in New York: ‘The public has to be protected from behaviours like this.’

Kelly’s victims gave emotional speeches in court and said that the Grammy award- winning singer ‘destroyed so many lives’.

The 55-year-old singer whose real name is Robert Sylvester Kelly, was convicted last September after decades of rumours about his conduct.

During the six-week trial, 45 witnesses described how Kelly used his entourage to recruit fans and aspiring artists before subjecting them to shocking abuse. The victims’ parents claimed they were being held against their will in Kelly’s homes and likened what he did to a cult.

In sentencing, US District Judge Ann Donnelly told Kelly, pictured right: ‘These victims were disposable to you.

‘You left in your wake a trail of broken lives… you taught them that love is enslavement and violence and humiliation.’

In a victim impact statement read out in court one of Kelly’s victims, ‘Angela’, likened him to a Pied Piper.

She said: ‘With every addition of a new victim, you grew in wickedness.

‘You used your fame and power to groom and coach underage boys and girls for your own sexual gratification.’

Kelly was first accused of having sex with underage girls in the 1990s and illegally married the late singer Aaliyah in 1994 when she was 15 and he was 27.

Kelly will now face a separate trial in Chicago in August for creating and obtaining child pornography and other sex crimes, which he denies.