Paedophile King should shut up, says victims group

PAEDOPHILE pop mogul Jonathan King was told yesterday to “shut up” for the sake of his victims as he continued to protest his innocence after his release from prison.

King, 60, told reporters he had done nothing wrong as he left prison yesterday after serving three-and-a-half years of a seven-year sentence for sexually abusing teenage boys.

He insisted people of both genders had found him “extremely attractive” and were never forced to do anything they did not want to.

King claimed his time in custody had been “fantastic” and said he now intends to devote time to helping pursue hundreds of miscarriage of justice cases.

His comments angered Britain’s Victims of Crime Trust director Norman Brennan who described the disgraced celebrity as a “danger to young boys” whose “perversions” caused revulsion across the nation.

Mr Brennan said: “The jury that heard all the evidence were convinced beyond all doubt that he was guilty.

“He is a thoroughly discredited individual and my advice to him is he is lucky to get out as early as he did for such serious crimes.

“He is a danger to young boys. His perversions have caused revulsion around the country.

“He used his position of fame and celebrity thinking victims would not come forward and give evidence against him. But he is wrong.

“The best thing for him to do for the sake of his victims brave enough to give evidence is to just shut up.”

King was convicted at the Old Bailey in September 2001 of sexually abusing five youngsters aged 13 to 15. The court heard the impresario lured boys to his home in Bayswater, west London, in the 1980s and showed them pornography before assaulting them.

He was jailed for seven years in November 2001, but has continued to protest his innocence despite failing in a bid to have his convictions overturned in 2003.

As King left Maidstone Prison in Kent yesterday morning, he said: “I’m innocent of the charges against me. There is no issue of the acts being consensual, there were no acts. However much people try, you can’t bend the truth.”

He confirmed his legal team are awaiting a judicial review to challenge the decision not to refer his case to the Court of Appeal.