Police in dock over missing evidence of star witness in Jonathan King child sex trial
In the week judge throws out THIRD historic abuse case against former DJ convicted of molesting boys...
"THE child sex abuse case that saw pop mogul Jonathan King handed a seven- year jail sentence has been reopened in the light of fresh evidence – including documents which dramatically undermine the testimony of a star witness at his 2001 trial.
Fresh evidence is being considered by the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), which will decide whether to order a new appeal. It emerged as a result of King’s trial this year on separate, though related, charges of ‘historic’ sex abuse, some dating back to 1970.
That case was brought to an end last week when the judge issued a damning ruling, accusing Surrey Police of failing to disclose critical evidence and misleading the court.
Judge Deborah Taylor told Southwark Crown Court that it would be impossible for King to get a fair trial because ‘the integrity of the criminal justice system and processes have been undermined publicly in a fundamental way by disclosure failures and persistent misleading of the court’.
She added: ‘ A trial has been aborted due to the failures. The time of the court and public money have been wasted, in a time of scarce resources… Continuation would undermine public confidence in the administration of justice.’
The Mail on Sunday can reveal that the fresh evidence to be considered by the CCRC includes:
Witness A – one of five underage victims King was convicted of abusing in 2001 – who gave a long, unpublished interview to the News of the World four years before he spoke to the police, in which he revealed a very different story from his trial testimony. This newspaper has established he told the reporter in 1997 that he met King when he was with a friend at an amusement arcade, and was not assaulted until weeks later;
In 2001, Witness A said former DJ King first approached him when he was alone at a market stall, drove him in his Rolls-Royce to a ‘peep show’ and, later that same day, took him to his home, where he assaulted him. The police knew of these discrepancies seven months s before the 2001 trial, but allegedly did not disclose the 1997 account to the defence team;
As the MoS first revealed in 2016, an investigation by the author Bob Woffinden, who died earlier t his year, shows t hat another boy King was convicted of abusing was not in the same country as the music mogul throughout the period when he claimed he was certain the alleged abuse took place. He was in England, but tickets, receipts and credit card bills unearthed by Woffinden show that t King was in America;
A 2014 report by Merseyside police on Operation Arundel, the original 2001 Surrey investiga- tion, was only disclosed to King’s s lawyers shortly before the 2018 case finally collapsed. The report, triggered by Surrey’s widely criticised investigation of allegations against Jimmy Savile before his death, made sweeping criticisms of the way Arundel officers took statements from alleged victims, saying the method they used ‘increases the possibility of error’, and ‘the integrity of any statement taken in this manner is open to question’;
The report says officers failed to tape the questions they asked during interviews, while victims’ state- ments were written up and signed ‘days if not weeks’ afterwards from short ‘ trigger notes’, instead of immediately. The CCRC will now decide whether this casts doubt on all the evidence that convicted King in 2001;
The first Arundel detective to take a statement from an alleged victim of King was Mark WilliamsThomas, now a TV presenter. According to Judge Taylor’s ruling, after Williams- Thomas left the force, for police found ‘a document on his hi computer offering for sale names na and introductions to victims of Mr King’. The judge also said th that when he left, Williams-Thomas took his police notebooks concerning e King with hi m. The prosecution said he should not have done this because they were force property;
In 2018, though not in 2001, King was charged with abusing Witness B, the alleged victim interviewed by Williams-Thomas. Witness B could not have testified in person because illness had destroyed his ability to speak: the jury would have been asked to convict King on the basis of his 2001 statement. Witness B’s medical records, which showed he had been in numerous mental institutions and had been a drug addict, were only disclosed in June, shortly before the trial collapsed.
Yesterday, King, 73, told this newspaper in an exclusive interview: ‘I’m naturally delighted by the outcome, but my real hope is to protect others in future, and to let the many teachers, care workers and others who have also been wrongly convicted of so-called historic sexual abuse to have their cases reopened too.
‘There needs to be change at all levels. But as Judge Taylor has done, we must start with the behaviour of the police.’
He said that Surrey Chief Constable Nick Ephgrave, the man ultimately responsible, should resign.
King’s long career in pop began in 1965 when he had a top five hit while still a Cambridge student. He went on to write, perform and produce many more, while also discovering bands such as Genesis.
His contacts were also impeccable. In 2001, Simon Cowell stood him bail, and when he was arrested, King had been offered the chairmanship of recording giant EMI on an annual £5 million salary.
Other famous friends included
One witness gave a different story in court ‘I deliberately broke the law with young men ’ The integrity of the criminal justice system has been undermined in a fundamental way by disclosure failures and misleading of the court JUDGE DEBORAH TAYLOR
‘I was very good at seduction’ ‘Driven by concerns in wake of the Savile case’
former Page 3 model Samantha Fox.
He admits the sexual opportunit i es t hat s uccess gave hi m were endless, and some might find his promiscuous behaviour reprehensible.
But he says he never made any secret of it, and was always clear he was not interested in settling down. In a recent video, he ironically described himself as a ‘vile pervert’.
‘I’m bisexual,’ he said, ‘ and I had sex with hundreds of people. About 40 per cent were women.
‘ But I found it absurd that in the 1970s and 1980s, I could legally have sex with a 16-year-old girl but not with a boy the same age because the age of consent for gay sex was 21.
‘So I deliberately broke the law with young men who were over 16, and who wanted to have sex with me.’
King insisted he went to elaborate lengths to ensure he never slept with anyone under 16, adding: ‘I was very good at seduction. I’m sorry if some people have come to regret having sex with me in later life. But if anyone said no, I WELL CONNECTED: King with former Page 3 model Samantha Fox accepted it. I knew some of those who made allegations, but I didn’t have sex with any of them.’ In all, King has faced four trials. The first – in which he was convicted of abusing boys aged 14 and 15, with offences ranging from b....ry to touching inappropriately – led to his seven-year jail sentence, of which he served three and a half years. In the second, in November 2001, he was accused of abusing two boys but found not guilty on all counts. A third trial due after that was dropped by the prosecution. The charges he would have faced then were ‘left on file’. But King was assured by his lawyers that they would never be revived. Legal experts say it is highly unusual for charges of this kind to be tried years later. However, this is what happened in King’s fourth trial, which ended last week. Of the ten alleged victims, seven – including Witness B – had first made statements in 2001, when their claims were either left on file or did not lead to charges.
The other three came forward after King was arrested in 2015 amid huge publicity.
The 2001 trial started in June. In April, King’s defence, led by solicitor Steven Bird and Henry Blaxland QC, had tried to get the case stopped as an ‘abuse of process’, arguing it was unfair to revive the old allegations.
At that stage, the judge disagreed. But then, following pressure from King’s defence, further documents were disclosed, including the Mer- seyside report on Operation Arundel and Witness B’s extensive medical records.
The prosecution, acting on information from the police, had wrongly told the court these documents contained ‘nothing of relevance’, and that there was no ‘final version’ of the Merseyside report – when, in fact, there was, and Surrey Police had a copy in their files.
King was found not guilty on the two charges which had lain on file, including the claim he abused Witness B. Then the case was aborted.
Meanwhile, a long statement to police by the News of the World reporter describing his interview with Witness A in 1997, with its many discrepancies from his 2001 evidence, had also come to light.
It had been sent to King’s office as part of a package of ‘ unused material’ in October 2001 but he never examined it because by then he had been convicted, and was in Belmarsh prison.
King said he was sure that the reporter’s statement had not been disclosed before his trial, and if it had been, hi s barri s t er, Ron Thwaites QC, who had a formidable reputation, would have used it to undermine Witness A’s allegations.
The 2018 prosecution lawyers said ‘it is not possible to say’ if the reporter’s statement was disclosed before the 2001 trial or not, but admitted that the information it contained was ‘not in any statement made by [Witness A] himself’.
‘I was misled,’ Judge Taylor said at the end of last week’s ruling.
She added that, whether the misleading was deliberate or not, to allow this ‘would give rise to a belief that in this type of case, where there are sexual allegations against figures in the public eye, the courts are prepared to sanction the end justifying the means’.
Perhaps most astonishingly of all, she also suggested that the 2018 case had ‘not been driven by complainants’ allegations’, but ‘by concerns about reputational damage to Surrey Police in the wake of the Savile case and the consequent Merseyside investigation’.
Last night the CCRC confirmed that it had reopened the 2001 case. A spokesman said: ‘We will examine whatever material there may be which is relevant. Anything that concerns witnesses’ credibility will have a bearing.’
Williams- Thomas said he ‘ not been given any opportunity to defend myself ’ before the judge issued her ruling, saying that he should have been. He said he left the police with an ‘ exemplary record’ and only kept his notebooks because he was advised to do so.
As to the document the judge said was found on his computer offering to sell details of King’s alleged victims, he said: ‘After two investigations, no action was taken against me.
‘It must follow that no offences were disclosed. I categorically deny any wrongdoing here or in relation to any of the other criticisms… I pride myself on my ability to protect victims of such crimes.’
A Surrey Police spokesman said: ‘We recognise there were serious organisational f ai l i ngs in t he investigation, particularly in relation to disclosure.’
The force ‘deeply regret we did not meet the required standards to ensure a fair trial. For this we wholeheartedly apologise.’
The spokesman added that the force had commissioned an ‘independent review’ and a formal complaint by King was now being investigated. However, Chief Constable Nick Ephgrave had ‘no intention of resigning’.