Ex Radio 1 DJ admits more sex attacks on boys
Now Chris Denning is facing jail
FORMER Radio 1 DJ Chris Denning was facing jail yesterday after admitting sexually abusing 26 boys as young as nine while he was at the BBC.
One of the founding disc jockeys at the station, the music producer molested children at the height of his stardom before opening a computer shop near his home, which became a magnet for schoolboys.
The 73-year- old paedophile lured them to his shop in Parkstone, Dorset, to look at video games and computers before asking them to do jobs for him.
Using his fame, Denning also enticed children to his home and a campervan where he plied them with alcohol and indecently assaulted them.
His offences span two decades from 1967, when his career took off as he joined the opening line-up for BBC1, working with stars such as Tony Blackburn, Kenny Everett, Terry Wogan and John Peel.
But he was sacked in 1969 after telling listeners: ‘I got up this morning feeling like a 16-year- old boy. But where do you get one at 6am?’ Yesterday the sex offender, who has a string of convictions dating back to 1974 for assaulting young boys, was warned that he faced jail after he admitted 41 charges of indecent assault and gross indecency between 1967 and 1987.
The frail pensioner shuffled into Southwark Crown Court to plead guilty to the offences.
He had previously admitted 29 sex attacks on 22 children at a hearing in August, but was due to stand trial later this month for a series of allegations relating to other schoolboys.
Yesterday the defendant, who struggled to hear and suffers from a range of illnesses including Parkinson’s disease and diabetes, admitted the remaining 12 charges, muttering: ‘Yes guilty, but never to penetration.’
The disgraced former DJ, who suffered a heart attack in 2009 and struggles to walk after fracturing his spine, showed no remorse in the hearing.
Denning was one of a group of men, including former BBC DJ Jonathan King, who targeted youngsters at the Walton Hop, a 1970s teenage disco.
He was first convicted for gross indecency and indecent assault in 1974 at the Old Bailey. Before his conviction, Denning had been working for King’s newly founded UK Records, but was sacked by King, who was later jailed for seven and a half years for child sex offences in 2001.
Since then Denning has been in and out of prisons in England and Europe for sex assaults and child pornography. Many of his victims were picked up in bars and games arcades.
He was living at an Essex homeless shelter when he was arrested in April last year under Operation Yewtree, the police probe launched after the Jimmy Savile abuse scandal.
Detective Chief Inspector Michael Orchard said: ‘Denning’s only redeeming quality is that he has not made his victims go through the trial process.’
Denning was remanded in custody and will be sentenced on December 9.