Peter Gabriel’s love rival made £100k running a brothel
IN his heyday, he not only produced records by Peter Gabriel but also had an affair with the singer’s wife.
Now David Lord has narrowly escaped being sent to prison after he was caught running a brothel at his home.
Lord, 71, made £100,000 in 20 months from the ring of vice girls he operated at his £550,000 house in Bath, Bristol Crown Court was told.
The prostitutes charged clients £130 an hour, of which £30 went to Lord. He arranged bookings, answered emails from clients and even provided them with condoms.
Lord, who worked on Gabriel’s self-titled fourth album in 1982, was one of the most successful producers during the Eighties.
Acts who used him included Kate Bush, The Stranglers, The Pretenders, Tears For Fears, Jean-Michel Jarre, XTC, Icicle Works, The Korgis and Echo And The Bunnymen. In the early Eighties, Lord had a well-documented affair with Gabriel’s first wife Jill Moore – whose father, Lord Moore of Wolvercote, was then the Queen’s private secretary.
The former Genesis frontman revealed the relationship a few years later in an authorised biography, shortly after he and Miss Moore divorced.
Gabriel, now 65, described how both had been unfaithful and had shaved their heads as a penance. He went on to have relationships with Rosanna Arquette, Sinead O’Connor and Claudia Schiffer before marrying second wife Meabh Flynn in 2002.
Lord, whose three- bedroom house also contains a state-of-theart recording studio, appeared in court earlier this month for sentence after he admitted keeping and managing a brothel. His oneyear jail sentence was suspended for two years after the judge heard that Lord cared for the women he employed and treated them well.
Lord had told police in 2009 that he ran an escort agency, when they visited his home after a burglary. However, the officers did not realise it was a vice operation.
His activities were finally exposed when undercover officers visited the property in August 2013.
James Ward, prosecuting, said: ‘The uniqueness about this case is that there was no violence or coercion to the girls because, as we know from other cases like this in this court, there often is.’
James Tucker, defending, described Lord as ‘an older gentleman of an avuncular nature’ who had agreed to pay back £100,000 he had made from the brothel since January 2012.
Suspending Lord’s sentence, Judge Geoffrey Mercer QC ordered him to wear an electronic tag and observe a curfew between 7pm and 7am for four months.
After the case Lord thanked the judge for ‘being so fair in the circumstances’ but outside court questioned why he had been singled out. ‘There are loads of places in Bath and Bristol doing exactly the same as I was doing, which the police are aware of,’ he said.
‘I don’t know why they went for me. The law in this situation is a bit strange, if you ask me.’