Lloyd Webber’s waron aG-string
Composer fights to close brothels after his wife is mistaken for sex worker
HE MAY own a home in one of the capital’s most exclusive areas – but conductor Julian Lloyd Webber says his prestigious neighbourhood has become blighted by vice dens.
The musician has launched a fight against the illegal brothels after his wife, the internationally acclaimed cellist Jiaxin Cheng, was mistaken for a sex worker.
One of the sites, masquerading as a ‘health centre’, has already been closed down, but Lloyd Webber has vowed to continue the battle against prostitution in South Kensington in West London.
Julian, younger brother of composer Andrew, has a home in the upmarket district and last night told The Mail on Sunday: ‘The problem is well known around the area, put it that way. What annoys me is that many shops work so hard to try to pay very high rents through legitimate means, and then you have other kinds of shops getting away with you-know-what.’
A neighbour said Julian had never forgotten the humiliating incident his wife endured outside one ‘health centre’, just yards from his home.
‘One place was known to the council, which eventually managed to remove its licence,’ Lloyd Webber said. ‘But the shop appealed and was reopened because police said they didn’t have the resources to investigate. The whole thing got dropped after an awful lot of time was spent on it.’
Julian, 65, and his fourth wife Jiaxin, 42, have a five-year-old daughter, Jasmine Orienta.
They are now based in Birmingham, where Julian is principal of the city’s Conservatoire, but he remains president of the local neighbourhood association in South Kensington and regularly writes for its newsletter.
In one issue this year he wrote: ‘Perhaps [police] could turn their attentions to massage parlours masquerading as health centres in the Royal Borough?
‘Whatever one’s moral stance on these places, it is extremely unfair on all the other bona fide retailers.’
One association official said: ‘Julian was incredibly annoyed when his wife was accosted by a customer of one of these places who thought she was working there. We always see men going in past their licensing hours of 11pm. When I went there to check, they were all very scantily dressed and the girls were calling them darling.
‘The shop is still there and Julian is always asking what’s happening with it.’