Not So Profundis

(My Side of the Story)

            September 11th, 2001 was the most important day in my life. On that Tuesday, in the Old Bailey Court, where, 100 years before, Oscar Wilde had stood in the dock charged with very similar accusations, the jury was sworn in and my own trial began. There was no media coverage of the week. Judge David Paget had put a contempt of court ban on it, because there were future trials planned. He had divided the claims up into sections. There are two aspects of the Jonathan King scandal that, I believe, need objective and considered examination - the specific situation that arose and destroyed me - technically, I hasten to add. In reality I'm doing fine, thank you, and looking forward to the second part of my enormously enjoyable existance. The other aspect is the general, disturbing elements which, I would suggest, clearly shout blind homophobia and dangerously blinkered reaction to the word or insinuation of paedophilia.

            I'm clearly biased in both areas. You cannot exist in the centre of a tornado and retain your ability to divorce yourself from the emotions. But there has been so much negative, tunnel vision, inaccurate and unfair coverage of my case that I feel the need to pass across my observations so that less involved, intelligent thinkers can balance the realities and reach conclusions. I am not a paedophile. I don't say that in any way to denigrate those who are. I'm not prepared to stamp my own morality onto others, and I have never done so.

            During the 60's & 70's, most of my friends took drugs. I didn't. But that was my own choice, for myself, and I was never ready to condemn them for making a different choice for themselves.

I, simply, do not find children sexually attractive. I am bisexual and I do find teenagers attractive. I always have done, ever since I was a teenager myself. I'm not a paedophile. I'm a teenophile. And anyway, I'm now too old to be the slightest bit interested in any physical involvment, thank you.    Secondly, I would never force anyone into doing anything they don't want to. Indeed, the prime element in my personal enjoyment of sex is that my partner enjoys it more or as much as I do. Please bear that in mind.

            Homosexual, consensual behaviour was illegal between men under 21 (until 1993) or 18 (until 2001) - a discrepancy in the law which made no sense at all, since the heterosexual age of consent was 16. I chose to ignore that law, as did many others. So I am guilty of criminal acts. I did deliberately break the law. For me, if a woman was capable of legally consenting to sex at the age of 16, so was a man. Since that is now the law, I would claim that I was right and the law was wrong.

And I'll go further than that. In the merry 60's & 70's, when I was a young pop star, most of us were blissfully enjoying the fruits of our success. We did not always ask for birth certificates. So, whilst I did not want, look for or enjoy children as sex objects, I cannot swear that every single girl or boy fan was 100% certainly over 16. And I would guarantee that virtually every one of my fellow pop stars in that era felt the same way. Some of those cute groupies, who all made certain they looked older than they were, may have been technically, under the age of consent. So I may also have been guilty of having under age sex. The fact that 100% of pop stars in the era were also guilty is not an excuse, but do we really need to prosecute and persecute every one of them?

            It was a very open time. I had illegal sex, below the age of consent, with John Lennon - except, then, I was the "abused" and he was the "abuser". I have to say, two young men picking up a couple of girls and returning to my apartment for a "foursome" seemed fun and enjoyable, even though I was under 21 and John was over 21 at the time. God knows how old the girls were - perhaps they'd like to write and let me know, if they are still around - clearly now in their fifties but, hey, I'm still here! I remember Jimi Hendrix, a good friend and decent guy who, I constantly told him, indulged far too much in illegal substances and unsuitable girls, once begged me to examine his member to see if he'd caught VD. He had indeed. "I can't believe it, man", he moaned, "how could she have gonorrhea? She can't be a day over 14". That was the way it was, in the 1960's. Guilty is such an emotive word. The Jews and Gays were guilty of being jewish and gay in Nazi Germany but most people would agree it was society that was, in reality, guilty.

            Moving onto the specific allegations in my case. The entire Operation Arundel went back to one, seedy and totally untrue claim against me from 1971, by a distressed man who is now in his late forties and who, thank heavens, has found help for his trauma and pain with top psychiatrist Max Clifford. Indeed, Max, I suspect, helped him sell his story, anonymously, to The Sun, even though his claims were thrown out by the Crown Prosecution Service who, I believe, never had any intention of continuing with them - the witness was clearly highly unbelievable. I don't think I ever even met him. I certainly never had sex with him. And, since he claimed to be working for a major company at the time, he was, anyway, over 16, since that company never hired anyone under 16. Those claims, deliberately followed by arrest and charges, were, I'm certain, designed to provoke other, more probable, allegations. The entire setup stank. So, after the expected saturation media coverage, the equivalent, I gather, of around five million pounds across a 48 hour period, others came forward. These ranged from total lunatics, some of which even the police discarded as blatantly fake, to people I had perhaps once met casually, to others who I had known better and who exaggerated the circumstances, to some whose descriptions were reasonably accurate, but who had re-invented the effect and altered their involvement at the time. Some consciously, some unconsciously, some for reasons of greed or revenge or a desire for attention, some to justify subsequent personal failure, and many from people whose drugs and drink problems had spiraled out of control, through whatever cause.

            Exactly as you would expect, if a celebrity suddenly became notorious for a specific reason.

            But I had a bigger problem. A huge contribution to my success has been my involvement with the public. I've always spoken in detail to virtually every teenager I've ever met. I've found it invaluable for assisting my understanding of records and bands, for giving me ideas for songs and projects, for adapting and improving TV series and publications, and for producing everything from CDs to programmes. I've given away millions of promotional records and T-shirts and posters.

The vast majority of those fleeting meetings remained superficial and passing. I'd ask questions, get polls filled in, send a couple of CDs as a thank you and never hear from the people again. In a few cases, I'd get back letters or meet up again, for further research. Some of those became friends. And a tiny percentage did, indeed, become closer relationships. The largest amount of phonecalls I had, after the case broke, was from people who had met me and wanted to come forward on my behalf, to attest that nothing happened and that I made no indecent approaches whatsoever. My lawyers told me they would be no use in court. The fact that I hadn't assaulted hundreds would not prove me innocent of other specific allegations. Of the many alleged "victims", the police or CPS dropped the majority as clearly false, or at least very dodgy. When, in court, we proved that several of the others were over 16 and even if something had happened, it was clearly consensual, owing to the large amount of time before a complaint, and the fact of numerous return visits. Some of those have since made large sums of money selling their original and inaccurate stories to the media - surely a grossly immoral, if not, illegal, way to behave. Those that were left were riddled with lies and, indeed, we proved that so clearly in the second trial that the case collapsed. Both the claimants were over 16 - though one had pretended to be 13 - and both had numerous flaws and lies, which were not difficult to establish. Still, both of these men had their original claims printed by the papers, without a word of the evidence against their veracity. How do some newspaper editors sleep at night?

            The CPS were left with five people and the jury found me guilty. One of those, who I had, again, never met, was proved to be not 12, but 16 or 17 - since a photo he claimed I gave him on our last "meeting" was taken three years later. The CPS changed the dates on the indictment, as they did on four charges. All this was done in front of the jury - but they still convicted me.

In the final analysis, I was found guilty of only one serious sexual offence - buggery. The man concerned had been trying to sell his story to the News of the World for three years, and they had found it so ludicrous that they that they did not even call me to find out whether or not I knew him. After the publicity, he sold it, probably, through the reporter from the News of the World, who has since moved to the People - I doubt whether he got the £250,000 he was originally asking for, but his later descriptions were much improved and embellished from his original tale.

He's clearly always wanted to make money from his exaggerated story. In court, when asked, if it was so traumatic, why he continued to visit me, he said I was "a great bloke and I had a fantastic time"... pause for thought... "except for the buggery, of course." I almost burst out laughing in the dock. The timing was delicious and, if it hadn't been unintentional, the humour could have given him a successful career as a sit-com script writer for the BBC. As it is, I fear he'll take his ill gotten gains to the brothels and poppy fields of Asia - he loves Thailand and said in court "I can get off heroin - I just can't stay off it". I'm afraid he could truly become a tragic statistic of the judicial system. For his own sake, like the News of the World, they should never have encouraged him. So there you go, for one conviction - and he did return many times over three years, until he was nearly 17 - I received 7 years. Tony Martin, the farmer apparently supported by the British public, got five years for killing a teenager. There's British justice for you.

            The media coverage ignored the single, serious conviction and created a story including 20,000 boys (in truth, I must have spoken to over 20,000 teenagers over the years, girls and boys - but my intentions were totally honourable with virtually every single one of them), vice rings for V.I.P's (a silly, News of the World police assistance trawl method vaguely profiling "cabinet ministers" and "peers"- no "high court judges" or "national tabloid editors" though, I noticed), "evil pervert pop King" and every other cliche their tired old notebooks contained.

I've had them haul out the Myra Hindley "prison romance" stories and simply change the names. Despicably, the media even tried to smear my "character witnesses" - people like Jenny Powell and Tony Baker who, as 16 year olds, had known me when I produced the TV series No Limits and now, in their adult 30's, were nobly prepared to bear witness to my honesty and honourable intentions. Sean McGuire, who, as a 16 year old, I had approached to become a pop star and conducted numerous meetings with, was prepared to bear testimonial to my character even though he was about to star in a high profile US TV series. Tim Rice, a knight of the realm, Simon Bates, a highly respected DJ, Roy Greenslade, the top media commentator. Yet the media, after my conviction, tried to make them retract their endorsements. What vile behaviour. But let me re-iterate. One conviction for buggery (and the jurors, understandably, shuddered every time the word was mentioned, as did I. I gather juries nearly always convict sex offenders because of the graphic language used, which, I suspect, is all written by the same person. The statements against me were incredibly similar to the ones in the David Jones case which, luckily for him, were thrown out by the judge before the jury had to rule). One other conviction for "attempted buggery" - which I describe as "would you like to?" "no, I wouldn't." "oh, OK." And far lesser indecent assaults - one of which was putting a hand on the knee of the 12 year old, who turned out to be 16/17, and who never actually came to my house, despite his allegations.

All going back to the middle 80's. The middle 70's and late 60's charges were dropped.

            So that's my specific case. I still claim to be innocent, but there's very little I can do to prove I didn't do something 18 years ago. Just as the "victim" couldn't prove that I did - but the jury chose to believe his highly coloured allegations. My pathetic defence - "I didn't do it" was rightly rejected as boring, dull and not worthy of a tabloid headline.

            And onto the more general dangers of the current legal situation.

            It's quite understandable that people want to protect children and the vulnerable from abuse or manipulation. But I fear that the law, bending over to give voices to the voiceless, has made it possible for unscrupulous police officers, keen to get brownie points and high quotas, to falsify evidence and provoke untrue and malicious allegations. The motives are in place - both for lazy officers and for greedy or deluded claimants. Since there are no statutes of limitations for sex offences (unlike in virtually every other civilised Western nation), no need for proof, evidence, coroboration or witnesses - one person's word against another, no protection from publicity for the accused but a guarantee of anonymity for the accuser (unless waived for loads of media cash, of course) and large sums of money from the Criminal Compensation Board (up to £33,000) and the newspapers if there's a conviction - why wouldn't anyone make allegations? Especially when they are informed that there are dozens of others prepared to make similar claims. Isn't this an incredibly dangerous situation? Isn't British justice actually encouraging false allegations? Isn't it a blackmailer's charter - or, at least, a groupie gold rush for middle aged women and men who once met a celebrity? Or any other ordinary person? Put in an unfounded allegation against a former teacher, care home worker, swimming coach, uncle - and there could be £33,000 in it for you.

            Already, I fear there are wives who have got divorce, custody and cash from husbands in return for shouting rape, child abuse, or both - years after the alleged event (to explain the lack of medical or forensic evidence). I dread to think of society in ten years time, when orphaned, abandoned and homeless children from today grow into adults. There can be no intelligent, sensitive human being foolish enough to work in the care system. They'll know they will end up in prison, no matter how innocent they may be. Children will be brought up without any love, affection, interest, touching. Only the brain dead could decide to look after damaged kids today. What an indictment against society!

            The victims of false allegations need protecting just as much as abused children or battered spouses.

            As for me - well, this is the best and most interesting thing that has ever happened to me, with the possible exception of Everyone's Gone To The Moon. I've discovered a whole new world. The prison service is full of good people, grossly underappreciated by public and politicans alike, who daily illustrate the fundamental decency of humanity, by trying to make life more bearable for some very miserable inmates. I've also learned the obvious - that nobody is all good or all bad, and that some terrible crimes have been committed by some nice people. There is kindness in the most unlikely places.

            And I've become aware of the incredible truth in some of the most simplistic and obvious lyrics. The Mail on Sunday, thinking they were being ironic and witty, carried a line from Una Paloma Blanca - a song I didn't write but had a huge hit singing - just above the caption - Jonathan King, jailed this week for seven years. The line? "No-one can take my freedom away." Tell that to Nelson Mandela, I thought.

            Freedom is in your mind. You make your own freedom. So I've never been more free than locked up at Her Majesty's Pleasure. I'm free to observe, to contemplate, to consider, to listen, to read and to write.

            And I think my imprisonment may save thousands of future victims from being unfairly gaoled. But my great fear is that, in the vital and inevitable change of the law that will take place, the backlash may remove the voice from endangered kids and vulnerable people.

            Who is the villain in all this? It's the lazy, indolent police officer who sanctions operations which he knows are unfair, unimportant and easy - as opposed to chasing up real crime and protecting genuine current victims. It's the Crime Prosecution Service, which decides to prosecute stale, historic cases when it knows that the middle aged woman accusing the elderly father of abuse is either making it up, exaggerating it, suffering from boredom and a need for attention or even, possibly, speaking the truth - but who cares? There are worse things going on and greater crimes needing solving or avoiding.

Oscar Wilde's De Profundis which I have, of course, re-read, is actually terribly boring, self indulgent and badly written. He blames his downfall entirely on Lord Alfred Douglas, "Bosie", whereas he was clearly someone who fell in love with a beautiful but brainless and indolent young man and allowed his passion to destroy his creative urges. It sums up the blame culture. Even though it was a century ago, even though Oscar was a terrific writer, he had to blame someone else.

            I don't blame anyone, not even myself. I blame the hypocritical British attitude towards sex.

We are brought up to consider sex as perfectly natural, but the subconscious message is the opposite. From the moment when a British mother removes a hand from fondling its genitals, we get the clear understanding that sexual gratification is bad, wrong and dirty.

            It's not.

            It's no different from having a meal with somebody. You don't force anyone to eat food they don't like. You don't intentionally feed someone poisoned food, or food that may damage or disagree with them. You don't buy someone a meal if they are under a delusion that it means something it shouldn't.

            My personal morality has meant I would never tell a girl I loved her, to get her into bed. That is immoral. One of the many claims that infuriated me was the allegations that I promised teenagers fame and fortune. Never. I would never play with someone's dreams. I'd never even say they would meet some celebrity or other. That, for me, is immoral. But there's nothing wrong with consensual sex. When it's both people enjoying it, as long as no disease can be caught or given, no unwanted pregnancy, no delusion of romance where none existed - that's fine by me. There should also never be breaking of the law - you pick your home in a country where you obey they law, or you move elsewhere.

            But the law of consent was, I believed, totally wrong in assuming one gender was less capable of making a decision than the other. So I deliberately chose to risk breaking that law. I'm now suffering the consequences but, for decades, I had no problems. Others had difficulties when consensual, heterosexual ex-lovers decided they wanted repayment for past affairs. The backlash from the equalisation of the age of consent passed into laws days after I was hastily and publicly charged, clearly indicates homophobia to me. I was picked to focus negative reaction. I was prosecuted in order to give a target to those who opposed the lowering of the age of consent for gay men to 16. I think it was deliberate, planned and organised. I was the perfect scapegoat. The police knew I was not a paedophile. They neither examined nor took away my computers. They ignored my address books. They found no pornography or indecent photographs of boys. I think there's a huge percentage of the country and the media that simply regards homosexuality as wrong and evil. The extraordinary reaction to my case, and the blatantly inaccurate and unfair media coverage of it, proves the reality.         And, catering to the homophobia, witnesses made a point of mentioning gay celebrities, some of whom I'd never met and none of whom I would ever have discussed - Kenny Everett, Elton John, and George Michael all had their names mentioned, for no good reason, except a desire to smear stars.

            The twin methods employed against me - to encourage the accusers to lie about both age and consent - were unforgiveable. Despite statements carrying virtually no details or specifics, I was able to prove, over and over, that men claiming to be under 16 had been over 16 and had returned to my home time and time again, willingly and happily. One man admitted visiting me twenty times during a three year period in his late teens. How can that be described, twenty years later, as traumatising? But the papers carried his story, despite knowledge that we had proof he was over 16 when he met me, and they had evidence that the judge had thrown out his allegations for that reason.

            I also feel that the legal system in Britain totally defies human rights. I am appealing to the European Court for that very reason. How could I defend myself from those elderly allegations? My girlfriend from the late 60's, Joan Thirkettle, who went on to be a successful ITN reporter, would have stood in the witness box and shredded the statements - but she died from cancer some years ago. My neighbour for 30 years Gaia Ingram, would have sworn that there was never any problem at my house, and no more young male visitors than any other type, but she died recently too. My producer/director on Entertainment USA, Gordon Elsbury, actually met some of the accusers and would have provided damning proof of their lies, but he passed away in the early 90's. Bank statements have been shredded. Phone records no longer exist. Plane tickets were thrown away. A fair trial? Totally, absolutely impossible. I assume (unless his life was different to his stories at the time) that a doctor examining a boy in the early 1980's would have been able to tell the court that he had never had any kind of anal intercourse. Twenty years later, I could not rely on any medical or forensic evidence to back up my innocence.

            It is, incidentally, incredibly hard to disprove details from a prison cell - remand prisoners are in an impossible position. Despite that, I managed, with the help of family and friends combing through my belongings, to get myself acquitted, and another claimant dismissed, by proving that a limited release record had, fortunately, had a date printed on the label which proved the allegations could not have been a year earlier. That I hadn't owned a car until a year after another allegation. That the photo taken of someone in my house was three years later than he claimed - the wood paneling installation and a decal from the general election was 100% evidence of the later date. That someone who remembers my multi coloured Afro wig was lying about the date - because I had proof I'd bought it two years later.

            These were just a few of the miniscule specific facts we showed to be false. Most statements are so vague that it's impossible to disprove anything. A "jury of my peers" - if they had been fellow celebrities - would have gone "oh my God, I've had letters using exactly that phrase dozens of times" as they heard the statements. Celebrities deliberately cultivate delusions. We want people to fall in love with us, to admire us, to inflate and increase meetings, to believe in Father Christmas. It's hard to accept that members of the public truly think soap opera characters exist, and should be freed from imaginary prisons. But thousands do - and would swear it on the Holy Bible. Millions genuinely testify that they have been abducted by aliens. And I'm afraid that many ordinary teenagers, who have met a pop star or TV celebrity a few times and had deep discussions about music, drugs, sexuality and relationships, transfer information into realities and actually come to believe that their friendships were more than just casual encounters and conversations. As the years go by, circumstances change people. Who can tell which events shape our lives? And, when you see someone on TV every few months, your imagination increases superficial meetings into deep and passionate affairs. Sometimes. A great place to apportion blame. For a failed marriage or collapsed career or a lack of success or a disappointment with life in general. Resentment increases. All they need is a trigger.

            My favourite headline was from the best - and nastiest - paper in Britain, the homophobic Daily Mail. "How did he fool so many for so long?", they howled on their front page. The obvious answer, unfortunately, is "he didn't". Incompetent though our media may often be, and lack of creativity and bad writing were hugely represented in the lazy coverage of my case, they are incredibly astute at spotting vice. It wasn't as though my personal, market research was done in disguise. My number plate, face, liberal use of cards and promotion discs, leaflets, phone calls - I was hardly hiding away. Thousands of helpful members of the public were approached by me and assisted my thoroughly successful 36 years in the media. And not a single complaint? Not one visit by a concerned police officer? Not one angry parent on the doorstep or on the phone? And not one journalist investigating? Extraordinary. Unbelievable - if I had been a sexual predator.

            Boys, who came hundreds of miles on trains, never decided they were bored by the journey and made excuses to their family. Or said they hated my music. Or, even, revealed they felt uncomfortable with my character. They didn't have to return so many times. Dozens of excuses were available. But decades later, with much learned from life, probably including a variety of real sexual experiences, and these men in their 30's, 40's (and one in his 50's!) invent, embellish and embroider according to observation and experience. There's money in it. There's attention in it. There's blame in it. There's power in it. But there's no truth in it. British justice encourages these crimes. It's understandable for the police, knowing they will get media and public support, to chase ancient allegations, but they are, I believe, told to behave in a dishonourable fashion and I think many honest officers find this offensive.

            Look at my case. Of the 21 claimants, 16 were dismissed, thrown out, placed on file, not allowed or I was acquitted. With virtually every one of them, we proved that either the dates were wrong, making them over 16 at the time, or that any relationship was clearly consensual, with admitted agreement. And this was with almost no details to work on - specifics were always very vague until the graphic, detailed allegations.

            Of the five people left, three returned many times to visit me after the first traumatic experience, which I considered extraordinary and unlikely. The fourth didn't like me, and I didn't like him, but we met in the street some weeks later and he asked to return. I refused his offer.

            The fifth I still, to this day, swear I had never met. He claimed numerous visits when nothing untoward occured, until the final time, when I placed my hand on his leg and he rushed off in panic. Quite apart from finding it strange that so trivial an accusation placed me in the dock of the Old Baily, I was able to prove that a photograph he claimed I gave him on the last visit had not been taken until three years later. I've mentioned this before as an example of the bizarre ability of the prosecution to change the dates in the indictment radically, without complaint from the judge.

            It dawned on me that perjurors seem rarely prosecuted. In the David Jones trial, the judge threw out the charges against him. But were the men who lied about him brought to court? No. Why not? Could it be because they were coached in any way? I only know that the words used in all statements appear virtually identical. I call it police manual porn speak. And as for the "impact statements", foolishly utilised by judges for setting sentences, you know the "it's ruined my life - I can't hold a child in my arms" type rubbish? That is universally photo copied rent-a-tear garbage and judges should be ashamed of themselves, falling for it. It's almost as though a form is filled in, containing names and addresses, and the rest is standard "impact".

            I earnestly believe that these ingredients continue to make a totally unfair legal climate. Dishonest men and women are encouraged to invent or exaggerate, with no risk of exposure. Officers of the law are given the incentive to deviate from the truth. Prosecutors are urged to stress factors they know to be false.

            Guilty men and women are pilloried by the victims, who inflate the circumstances. They are then told to blow the balloon up even further by investigating policemen, who know they need more to get a conviction. And, finally, the media add extra puffs of imagination to turn a man who once lost his temper into a serial killer. It all makes for bolder headlines and better stories. And judges fall for it. Which judge wants to face the "too short a sentence - Liberal Loony" caption? After conviction, there are the rent-a-cliche's of "showed no remorse". "stumbled on way out of the dock" and "hundreds of thousands of other victims". It's so predictable, so lazy and so unimaginative.

            Oscar Wilde, over 100 years ago, wrote in his De Profundis, subtitled Epistola: In Carcere Et Vinculis, "after my terrible sentence, when the prison dress was on me, and the prison house closed, I sat amidst the ruins of my wonderful life, crushed by anguish, bewildered with terror, dazed through pain". It's not much better than the News of the World, actually, is it? Depressive, negative and cliche'd.

            I feel totally opposite to poor old Oscar. My life has been equally wonderful, if superficial. More "Leap Up and Down and Wave Your Knickers in the Air" than "The Importance of Being Earnest". More knickers than earnest, so far! In the 60's I was a pop star and writer. In the 70's I added producer and record label boss. In the 80's I branched into TV, radio and journalism. In the 90's I produced the Brits, won Eurovision, became Man of the Year and published the best music industry magazine in the world. In the 2000's, I'm a pop pervert, evil sex beast and serial paedophile. Since I've always wanted to be an irritation, I appear to have peaked.

            But no. I have every intention of developing my talents even further. I want to rip asunder the fabric of British sexual hypocrisy. I want to help demolish the unfair laws and petty blindness of the judicial system, just like any terrorist. It may be a more serious task than It's Good News Week or Johnny Reggae. It may be less easy than naming and breaking 10cc or Genesis. It may be harder than establishing the Rocky Horror Show or the Bay City Rollers, and less financially rewarding than discovering "Who Let the Dogs Out" or "I Get Knocked Down But I Get Up Again".

            What a challenge though! The armies of middle England, who have rallied under the banner of the Daily Mail and the News of the World, those bigotted millions who hate love and affection and kindness and genuine, healthy sexuality, will shiver in fear that someone has actually stood up and dared to face them. I'm expecting further persecution and vilification. The demonisation of JK has been remarkable, considering the triviality of the conviction. But, alerted to my purpose, the media, police and CPS will pile on the nastiness. I will survive.

            Not my choice, I hasten to add. I'd have avoided this confrontation, given the opportunity. Very few people have the backbone for this type of battle, and I am no exception. But I've been passed the flag to bear, and hope to carry it prouder and better than Oscar Wilde managed 100 years ago. Society destroyed him. I will not allow it to destroy me. Or other, nameless innocents waiting to be exterminated.

                                                                        Jonathan King, January 2002