Swaggering svengali who called himself ‘a patient pervert’
HIS fall from grace was spectacular but Jonathan King – pop star, DJ, music mogul, TV star, and convicted paedophile – has never lost his flamboyant swagger. And he faced his latest trial for historical sexual offences with a confident flourish.
On the first day back in June, wearing his trademark brightly coloured sneakers, he bowed in mock obeisance to the waiting paparazzi.
The 73-year-old posted a picture of himself arriving at Southwark Crown Court, and captioned it: ‘A patient pervert. As I stand for the assembled Paps – patient and dignified – assisting them in the job they have to do. Do I really have to go through this again?’
As he told an interviewer in 2012: ‘I don’t skulk, I lead my life as normal.’
In truth – his legal travails aside – the extravagant lifestyle he enjoys must give little comfort to his victims. There is the mews house in West London with pink roses round the door, and when he’s not at the wheel of his red sports car, it’s the pale blue Rolls-Royce.
He enjoys West End shows, wines and dines his remaining friends, and never misses the Chelsea Flower Show.
Recently, he was spotted at the Old Boys’ cricket match at Charterhouse, a leading public school and his alma mater.
He holidays in the south of France and Morocco, and not long ago he rang in the New year in Barbados, just a few yards away from Simon Cowell – who put up the bail money during King’s first spell of legal bother.
There is absolutely no hint of contrition, no sense that he is in any way the least shamed by the seven year sentence he received in 2001 for having sexually assaulted five boys, aged 14 and 15, in the 1980s.
He was released on parole in March 2005, having failed to take part in a corrective programme.
He seems to have decided to handle his disgrace by pretending that it doesn’t exist.
On his website, vaingloriously titled ‘King of Hits’, he keeps followers updated on his legal issues and boasts of his former importance, claiming to have travelled 356 times on Concorde – more even than the late Sir David Frost, the airliner’s best known passenger.
Pop columnist Rick Sky, who has known King for decades, says: ‘He was always canny with money and unlike a lot of pop stars of that era he’s wealthy. He’s a very astute person.’
Contrary to appearances, he insists King has paid a price for his crimes and is largely shunned by the industry he adored. ‘He lived for [pop music] and this was his whole life but then the allegations destroyed him. He has been totally ruined [professionally] ... People don’t talk about him.’
Well, it’s not for want of attention seeking on his part in an utterly distasteful and – for his victims – distressing fashion.
After emerging from prison he produced a film called Vile Pervert: The Musical, presenting his view of events surrounding his prosecution for assaulting teenage boys.
The film includes a sequence in which, dressed as Oscar Wilde, he sings ‘(There’s Nothing Wrong With) B ******** Boys’.
For those who felt some trace of sympathy for his self-inflicted downfall, it was the final straw.
In truth, King had always shown a disregard for others. Raised in affluent Surrey – his father was managing director at tie manufacturer Tootal –
King was a boarder at Charterhouse. According to his autobiography, he was ‘intimate’ with 65 fellow pupils. Trinity College, Cambridge, followed, where pop music was an obsession. He had his first hit with ‘Everyone’s Gone To The Moon’ in 1965.
By 1966, when he was 22, he was running Decca Records. The following year, on a visit back to Charterhouse, he discovered the fledgling group Genesis, its members drawn from the ranks of pupils, and produced their first album. He later put together the band 10cc and developed The Rocky Horror Show.
In his various court cases, he’s been accused of trawling Soho for attractive boys 30 to 40 years ago. At the time, homosexuality was illegal.
In his defence, he has said that ‘those were different times, with different morals’. He claims that his own ‘morality’ has always been key to his conduct. ‘That is all I have ever stuck by. It is my own morality that really matters,’ he said.
‘My attitude was that if boys were over 16 – the age of consent for girls – and they wanted to do something with me, I’d do it.
‘If they were 15, female or male – because I am bisexual – I wouldn’t. If I could be sure.’
He added: ‘I have been found guilty of crimes that never happened and there is no evidence. It’s one person’s word against another.’
He has always denied the acts that sent him to prison in 2001, insisting that he never had sex with any of the five boys, and had not even met one of them.
His one and only expressed regret is that, as a man in his twenties and thirties, he hadn’t foreseen how persuading teenagers to have sex with him might lead to problems for them so many years later.
‘I became very capable of persuading people who, deep down, didn’t want to have sex with me that they should have sex with me...and you ask, should I have done that?
‘In some cases, looking back, I would say no, I shouldn’t. I should have been sensitive enough to know that the experience could screw them up in 20 to 30 years’ time.’