Millionaire music mogul faces jail for raping girls
A MILLIONAIRE music promoter who worked with the Beatles, Johnny Cash and Dolly Parton faces prison for raping two teenage girls.
Mervyn Conn, 82, forced himself on his victims in the Seventies and Eighties. One victim was 15 when the promoter hired her as a cowgirl for a music festival at Wembley Arena in 1976. She described him as “arrogant” as he boasted about his connections to the Beatles and showed off cash.
“He was a dominating person, very egotistical. He had this bouffant hair, smelt like cigars, looked almost like he was in the mafia,” she said. He offered her a lift home in his RollsRoyce but took her to his house in Wimbledon and raped her on his marital bed. “I just completely numbed out,” she told the court.
Conn raped another girl, 16, in 1985 after he had offered her tickets to a concert. When she went to collect them at his offices in Charing Cross, the 51-year-old forced himself on her. “She felt she had no choice,” said prosecutor Mark Milliken-Smith QC.
Conn, of Wimbledon, served an eight-week prison sentence in 1989 for sexually assaulting a secretary at his offices but emerged from semiretirement in 2012. He was arrested at Gatwick airport in 2014 when the fresh claims were made.
He pleaded not guilty but was convicted at Kingston crown court of one count of indecent assault and two of rape. He was acquitted of two counts of indecent assault and one of assault with intent to commit buggery. Conn, whose wife supported him in court, will be sentenced on October 28.