Jonathan King: 'Vile pervert' or innocent victim of false allegations and sexual equality activist?

Introduction

I first encountered Jonathan King in 2005 or 2006 at a Falsely Accused Carers and Teachers (FACT) annual conference (now known as Facing Allegations in Contexts of Trust). I bumped into Jonathan at various other miscarriages of justice conferences over the years since then, but I didn't look into his case in any detail, mainly because he didn't ask me to: Due to the volume of cases that I get asked to work on I tend to work only on cases that alleged innocent victims of false allegations or wrongful convictions or their families or supporters ask me to work on directly. More recently, as my research focus has centred more specifically on alleged false allegations of sexual offences, mainly rape and child sexual abuse, I have become more acquainted with Jonathan on both a professional and personal level, particularly since he spoke at the 2023 Empowering the Innocent (ETI) conference.

The impetus for this article was Jonathan kindly sending me the third volume of his autobiography, 80 That's All Folks! (80TAF), with a request that I tell him what I thought of it. My overall feeling after reading the book is that it left me with a number of questions about a dominant theme running through it relating to his alleged false allegations and wrongful conviction and imprisonment that required clarification. A major problem being that his claim of innocence is ambiguous, leaving it unclear whether he did or did not commit the alleged offences; whether he is trying to overturn his convictions on technicalities or is a factually innocent victim of false allegations and wrongful convictions who did not commit the alleged crimes.

In response, this article is in four broad parts. First, it provides some information on Jonathan King for readers unfamiliar with him and his work. It, then, gives some analysis of the context within which Jonathan, or any other alleged victim of a false allegation or a wrongful conviction, seeks to overturn his alleged wrongful convictions, highlighting the challenges that he is confronted with, both legal and cultural. After this, it deconstructs the different strands of his rather confusing narrative of innocence, which, I argue, works counter to fostering the public support that is vital in such quests for justice. Finally, it evaluates Jonathan's attempts to overturn his alleged wrongful convictions from the perspective of the role and significance of the mainstream media, again suggesting that he has failed to present his case in the way that it might best be presented. The overall aim here is to clarify that Jonathan is, indeed, claiming that he did not commit the offences that he was accused of; that he is factually innocent of those crimes. Moreover, rather than being seen as a 'vile pervert', a label that he himself has gleefully embraced, Jonathan King might better be seen as a sexual equality activist who intentionally broke now historical laws which discriminated between women and men and treated them differently. The hope is that his case is taken more seriously by journalists and the general public and investigated properly by the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) to try to get to the truth of the matter - without which there simply cannot be justice for victims, offenders and society more generally.

Who is Jonathan King?

For readers who are not familiar with Jonathan King, he is an English singer, songwriter and record producer and record label owner, UK Records, deemed as 'one of the most successful independent labels ever'. He first came to prominence in 1965 when 'Everyone's gone to the moon', a song that he wrote and sang while still an undergraduate at Cambridge University, achieved chart success both in Britain and in the US, a very rare feat at the time. He is credited with discovering or producing a number of bands - Genesis, 10cc, Bay City Rollers, for example - who sold tens of millions of albums between them under Jonathan's watch. He also sold an additional tens of millions of records under his own name or various pseudonyms.

Jonathan's fall from grace was just as spectacular as his rise to fame. The first celebrity to be convicted of historical sexual abuse offences, his career in the music industry was, effectively, terminated over night in 2001, when he was convicted of sexually abusing five teenage boys and given a seven year custodial sentence, alleged offences that he has challenged ever since. Other allegations have been made in the intervening years, which culminated with a second trial collapsing six weeks after the first amid doubts about the key witness, which saw Jonathan found not guilty of all charges. And, in 2018 a third trial was halted due to 'systemic failings in prosecution disclosure [that] were so grave that Mr king could not receive a fair trial'.

'Nonce' is an acronym for prisoners 'Not On Normal Courtyard Exercise'. It is a slang label to denote a person who commits a crime involving sex, especially sex with a child. According to prisons expert Ben Gunn, so called nonces are the lowest of the low in the prison hierarchy and are usually separated from the other prisoners for their own protection. They are also deemed by society, generally, as worse than those who murder or steal. Since his conviction, Jonathan has been routinely referred to on social media or under any online coverage of his alleged false allegations and wrongful conviction as a nonce or a 'paedo', short for 'paedophile', a person who is sexually attracted to children.

But, what if Jonathan King is innocent?

But, what if Jonathan King is telling the truth and the allegations against him are all false and he is, indeed, innocent? A worrying characteristic of our contemporary culture is the readiness of the general populace to believe uncorroborated allegations of alleged sexual offences. We love a salacious story, whether truthful or otherwise it doesn't seem to matter, and to think the worst of others, particularly celebrities and those in the public eye. Perhaps, it makes us feel better about ourselves and our own lives to criticise others, to see them fall. For Ken Norman, the inter-related concepts 'lynch-mob syndrome' and 'dirty thinking' explain such a phenomenon, which is punctured by miscarriages of justice where victims of false allegations and wrongful conviction and imprisonment have turned out to be innocent.

Two prominent examples of innocent victims of multiple false allegations of child sexual abuse from around the same time that Jonathan was accused and convicted are the cases of Basil Williams-Rigby, convicted of 22 counts of abuse and jailed for 12 years in 1999, and Michael Lawson, who was convicted of 17 counts of indecent assault and jailed for seven years in 2000. Both men, however, had their convictions overturned when evidence emerged in 2003 that the complainants in both cases had fabricated the allegations to secure large sums in compensation.

It may be difficult to imagine that 22, Basil Williams Rigby, 17, Mike Lawson, or 5 allegations of child sexual abuse, such as those made against Jonathan King, can all be untruthful. It is as though the greater the number of allegations the greater the likelihood that there must be something in the allegations that is truthful, which is likely why cases are 'improved' by the police by trawling for additional allegations in such cases in the hope that they 'win' their cases. But, 'winning' convictions of innocent victims of false allegations is a loss for justice, however much we may wish to see ourselves on the side of 'victims' or part of some sort of noble crusade against child sexual abusers.

It may also be difficult for readers to imagine 25 years on, but it was commonplace at beginning of this century, when Jonathan King, Basil William-Rigby and Michael Lawson were accused and convicted of child sexual abuse offences, for solicitors to advertise for people to come forward with claims that they had been abused as children in care homes, schools, youth clubs, and the like, using compensation to encourage such allegations. Indeed, at the heart of the allegations against Jonathan is the PR guru, Max Clifford, who sold stories of celebrities and who encouraged the original complainant in Jonathan's case to report the alleged offences to the police. It remains the case to the present day that the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority will pay significant amounts (tens of thousands) of compensation to (alleged) 'victims' of sexual abuse under the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme, with pay-outs made whether or not the [alleged] perpetrator is identified or convicted. What matters for the purposes of compensation is reporting what happened to the police. This incentives false allegations, which is, or should be, anathema to any notion of justice.

The rather obvious problem with compensation pay-outs for unproven allegations, with incentivising allegations with financial remuneration, is that it goes against a central tenet of the principle of fair justice. Moreover, many, if not most, alleged sexual abuse cases is that they happen in private and only those involved know the truth - so called s/he said /s/he said cases. Despite this, and without any evidence to support the allegation, the police and prosecution are currently instructed to 'believe the victim', meaning the person making the allegation, which sees charges made and convictions 'won' (prosecutors are under perennial pressure to get the number of convictions up) when the person accused may well be an innocent victim of a false allegation and the person making the allegation is the perpetrator of the criminal offence of perverting the course of justice, which carries the maximum sentence of life imprisonment in England and Wales.

To make matters even worse for alleged innocent victims of false allegations and wrongful convictions trying to overturn wrongful convictions, there is a widespread belief that the verdicts of the courts are always correct and that on the rare occasions that they are not that the criminal appeals system and the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) exist to help innocent victims overturn their wrongful convictions; i.e. correct any mistakes at trial. This can reinforce the public view that those who fail on appeal or are rejected by the CCRC must, surely, have committed the crimes they were convicted of. But, this is another myth from which the general public must also be disavowed. Neither the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) (CoA) nor the CCRC consider claims of innocence to determine whether they are truthful and the convictions should, therefore, be quashed; they are not about such natural justice. Rather, both the CoA and the CCRC work entirely within a legal paradigm and, save for exceptional circumstances which are, indeed, exceptionally rare, generally look for so called "fresh" evidence that was either not used or not available at the time of the original trial. The attempt is to determine whether trials were (legally) 'unfair' or 'unsafe' rather than whether alleged victims of false allegations and wrongful convictions are telling the truth and are innocent or not, which presents a further, often insurmountable, barrier for the innocent to overturn their convictions, leaving innocent victims of wrongful convictions with indeterminate sentences languishing in prison many years after their tariff dates.

As this relates, specifically, to Jonathan's claim that he is innocent of the allegations against him, Bob Woffinden, a mutual friend, and one of the most important and successful British investigative journalists in identifying miscarriages of justice, makes a compelling case for why he is telling the truth. His analysis is contained in an article in The Daily Mail and in a chapter in his book, The Nicholas Cases: Casualties of Justice, which contains accounts of nine additional cases that he says illustrate serious failings in the UK judicial system. Notably, the book includes the case of Andy Malkinson who overturned his conviction with DNA evidence in 2023 for an alleged rape that he served 17 years in prison for that he did not commit. Amongst other findings, Bob's investigation into Jonathan's alleged false allegations and wrongful conviction found that Jonathan was in the United States when he allegedly committed one of the offences. It also found that another of Jonathan's accusers was a drug addict who admitted that Jonathan "never buggered him" and that he "said he’d [Jonathan] done stuff he hadn’t done [because he] thought everyone was doing that.” There is little doubt that he fabricated his allegations for money, with which he bought a maisonette and likely spent the remainder on drugs.

This suggests that rather than being a child sexual abuser, a 'nonce' or a 'paedo', Jonathan King may well be the most harmed victim of a false allegation and wrongful conviction for alleged sexual offences in British history, certainly from a financial perspective: In 2000, the year of the first allegations, he says that he "had been offered and had accepted the job of Global Chairman of EMI Records at the salary, then, of £5 million a year for a firm, guaranteed ten years" (80TAF, page 55). He also told me that in addition to his loss of earnings due to the allegations and his conviction he so far has spent in excess of a million pounds on lawyers at his trial, for their work on his applications to the CCRC and to act for him in his attempts to ward off claims for compensation.

The problems with Jonathan King's narrative of innocence

A major problem with Jonathan King's attempts to overturn his alleged wrongful convictions, however, is how he narrates his claim of innocence. In both his book, 80TAF, and a speech he gave at the 2023 Empowering the Innocent (ETI) conference his claim of innocence is ambiguous, leaving readers / the audience uncertain as to whether he did or did not commit the alleged offences; whether they should feel sorry for him and support his struggle for justice or, frankly, hope he rots in hell. There are three discernible aspects to his narrative of innocence that need to be untangled.

1. "They were older than they say they were and it didn't happen when they said it did": In his attempts to overturn his convictions, Jonathan's main line of attack has sought to highlight how the indictment was erroneous. The indictment in a criminal trial is the formal court document for alleged indictable offences that will be tried by a judge and jury in the Crown Court. It outlines the offence, number of offences, a description of each of the alleged offences, and the date that the offence or offences were alleged to have occurred. It serves as the formal accusation in criminal law for such alleged offences. In Chapter 7 of 80TAF, Jonathan provides details of the various allegations against him to highlight how the indictment was wrong and, hence, misleading for the jury. In so doing, he argues, for example, that: One of his complainants who claimed to be 13 when they met was more likely 15 or even 16 at the time (page 88); Another complainant was listed as being 12 years old on the indictment when they met, when he would have also been 15 or 16 (page 91). Jonathan goes into each of the allegations with this method in the hope that he can show that his convictions should be considered unsafe and quashed by the CoA. This argument is supported by Bob Woffinden's investigation, which shows that: "Through a mixture of proven alibis and doubts over details, the defence demonstrated serious flaws." But, this can confuse the general public, making them think that the individual trying to overturn their conviction may not actually be innocent. We have all heard of the lawyers who act for drunk-drivers using technical defences and legal loopholes to get their clients off with it or minimise any punishment if they are unable to get the charges dropped. An example is the website of Motoring Defence Solicitors, which explores the tactics that they will employ on behalf of their drink-driving clients. This includes such things as challenging the validity of the breathalyser test, contesting the stop by the police, contesting the blood or urine test, contesting police procedures, and so on. In the eyes of the general public, such lawyers can be (and should be) conceived as bringing the notion of justice into disrepute, particularly when death or injury has been caused by the drunken driver who is trying to escape an appropriate sanction or punishment In the same way, readers of 80TAF may think that Jonathan is grasping for errors on his indictment to try to overturn his convictions, even though the way to overturn all wrongful convictions is to show that the evidence upon which the conviction was obtained is not reliable or the process and procedures were in some way not properly followed; it may seem like Jonathan is trying to overturn his convictions on a technicality, rather than stating clearly and unequivocally that he is innocent and did not commit the alleged offences at all. Crucially, the CCRC rejected one of Jonathan's applications based on such submissions, arguing that 'it was not when something happened but whether it happened' (80TAF, page 88), suggesting that it neither believes nor accepts that Jonathan is innocent even if he can prove that the alleged offences did not occur when they were claimed to have occurred and, hence, the indictment is wrong and the legal basis for his convictions is undermined.

2. "I am not innocent. I have always broken the law": A second discernible strand of Jonathan's claim of innocence can be described as "I am not innocent. I have always broken the law". On pages 12-13 of 80TAF, for instance, Jonathan engages in a thought experiment about how killing, hurting or violence to others is wrong, but how he thinks in certain circumstances such things can be justified, such as if someone was going to kill your wife. He then muses about when sex can be morally wrong, such as when it involves violence or dishonesty, noting, also, that sex "can be legally wrong when it breaks the law in any specific territory and for that I have to plead guilty. GUILTY. GUILTY. GUILTY." His speech at the 2023 Empowering the Innocent (ETI) conference was just as confusing, also serving to detract from his claim of innocence. During his speech he said: "I have to tell you, I am not innocent...innocent people are terribly boring. You've got to be guilty of something, and I was very much guilty of something", which is unlikely to endear people to support his plight. It is difficult enough to get support for an alleged wrongful conviction in a culture that has been conditioned to think that there are too many offenders getting away with it, but alleged wrongful convictions for child sexual abuse or paedophilia are even more difficult for people to take a leap of faith and get behind, and such doublespeak can be off-putting for even the most ardent advocate on false allegations. Indeed, when I have spoken with others working in the field of alleged false allegation and wrongful convictions about Jonathan's claim of innocence they seem to think that he has, in fact, had sex with minors, just not with those making the allegations. The effect is to potentially see his convictions as a form of poetic justice, which is to misunderstand, entirely, what Jonathan is wanting to say or trying to convey.

3. "It is absurd that I could have sex with a female aged 16 but not with a male": This final strand of Jonathan's claim of innocence links with the preceding strand, "I am not innocent. I have always broken the law", which needs to be understood in terms of breaking a law that he has always thought of as a form of sexual discrimination, because it was, and it was for those reasons that he chose to break it. In both 80TAF and his speech at the 2023 ETI Conference, Jonathan spoke of how he knew from an early age that he was a bisexual and thought it was "absurd" that "until 1967 it was totally illegal to have sex with another male in the UK, no matter how old you were. Yet, sex with the opposite sex was legal (and encouraged) if both parties were over 16"(80TAF, page 13). This was expressed by Jonathan at the 2023 ETI conference as follows: "If I fall in love with a girl of 16 and I am 16 it is perfectly legal....if I want to just have sex with a girl of 16 and I'm 16 it's perfectly legal, that's fine. However, not with somebody of the same gender, ever. It doesn't matter what age they are, ever. So, from that point onwards I started breaking the law deliberately, and continued in 1967 when they made it legal for males to sex with males as long as both were over 21. I wasn't even 21 at that point, but I'm going, but this is mad. Why are men not able to make up their minds until they are 21 whereas women can make up their minds at 16. I mean, that's insulting to both genders in my opinion. So, I deliberately broke the law for all of my adult sex life." It is important to understand on this point that Jonathan told me when I asked him directly that when he says that he has always deliberately broken the law relating to sex between males that he has never had sex with a male who didn't consent and he has never had sex with a male who was under the age of 16.

The importance of the mainstream media

In addition to the need for clarity with Jonathan's claim of innocence, it may seem an odd thing to say about someone who has as much experience and success with the mainstream media as Jonathan King, but I contend that he has totally misunderstood the specificity of how the mainstream media works in relation to alleged false allegations and wrongful convictions, which has served to further diminish public concern and support for his cause. The character that Jonathan played so well in the public arena in the decades preceding the allegations against him was very much in the role of a pantomime villain, revelling in being disliked for the attention that it obtained for him and, no doubt, the money it made him, too. A braggadocious man (even now, decades on, Jonathan can't wait to tell each new person he meets within minutes of their meeting about his fame and fortune and achievements, not endearing qualities to the British public) who was variously referred to as controversial, provocative and a contrarian at the height of his career and popularity, Jonathan's public persona epitomises Oscar Wilde's famous quote in The Picture of Dorian Gray: "There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about". His general approach and stance seems to be that even negative attention keeps you relevant and important, whilst being ignored shows a complete lack of interest and impact, a sentiment often linked to the idea that "there's no such thing as bad publicity" for those in the public eye.

In an article in The Independent of a radio show to celebrate Jonathan's 50th birthday, for instance, he is described as a 'prat' (a label that he is reported as giving to himself), a 'cartoon character' and a 'pop megamouth' who criticised anyone and everyone for the attention it gave him. In his own words, Jonathan said in the same article: ''If it moves, slag it off. That's my motto. I give them good copy. When I did the Bob Geldof thing (Jonathan criticised both Live Aid and its organisers) in The Sun, the paper got 18,000 letters of protest. That's the kind of reaction papers like."

This approach clearly worked for Jonathan in terms of pop music culture and his journalistic career. We all love to 'hate' a baddie, if only to see them fall, which I think is is also a relevant aspect of Jonathan's lack of support. But, an entirely different form of engagement with the mainstream media is required to enlist public concern and support for victims of false allegations and wrongful convictions. The first thing to understand is that the mainstream media is the primary source of information for the general public, shaping how the populace understands and feels about such things as allegations of child sexual abuse and what it thinks should be done in response. The mainstream media works according to certain frames or scripts, which alleged victims of false allegations and wrongful convictions should try to understand and work within if they are to obtain support from the public in their struggles for truth and justice. At the very least, alleged innocent victims of child sexual abuse, such as with Jonathan King, should, for instance, publicly criticise child sexual abuse for the abhorrent, abusive and despicable crime that it is. Moreover, as already indicated, claims of innocence should have clarity, with no uncertainty or ambiguity about the innocence that is being claimed if alleged victims of false allegations and wrongful convictions want to foster public support, which is even more crucial in overturning alleged wrongful convictions that have failed at the CoA and been rejected by the CCRC.

Contrary to this, Jonathan's reaction has been to ridicule his demonisation in the mainstream media in the way that he engaged with the media before his alleged false allegations and wrongful convictions, and, rather than shy away from the labels that have been applied to him since his conviction, he has mocked them, producing a number of satirical films which revolve around the allegations against him. 'Vile Pervert: The Musical', for example, is presented as a fictional satirical tale of a former pop star and TV personality who is falsely accused of historical sexual offences, wrongly convicted and sent to prison, and who makes a movie of his experiences upon his release, which very much mirrors his own experiences. With 21 songs and 21 characters, almost all played by Jonathan, it features police, judges, public relations persons, false accusers, media giants, tabloid editors, lawyers, observers, commentators, God and even Oscar Wilde. Despite its creative merits, I, personally, do not think that the opening scene with a full frontal naked Jonathan is helpful to trying to counter the 'vile pervert' label. The song "Wilde about boys' with Jonathan gleefully signing the lyrics 'There's nothing wrong with buggering boys', also acts against his claim of innocence for offences which include buggery of a boy. At the end of the film, Jonathan says: "People ask me why I made the film. "Is it to make viewers like me". No way. I hate being liked."

Herein lies, perhaps, the greatest obstacle to Jonathan in getting the appropriate type of media and public attention in his struggle to overturn his convictions. Negative attention may bring in the money in a general pop culture and media sense, but it will only detract from the positive attention and empathy that is required when challenging alleged false allegations and wrongful convictions. Just imagine how detrimental it would be for the campaign for justice for Lucy Letby, one of the highest profile alleged wrongful convictions in England and Wales at the moment with widespread support to have her convictions for alleged murders and attempted murders of babies referred back to the Court of Appeal by the CCRC, if she were to write songs about killing babies and try to pass it off as just a bit of fun. I am sure it would get additional media attention, but not of the form required to assist her struggle to overturn her alleged wrongful convictions. (Think, also, here of O. J. Simpson's book, If I did it: Confessions of the killer, on his claims that he did not murder Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson). It is in this sense that Jonathan's mocking of the allegations against him and his convictions is not only crass, it also serves to detract from the false allegations and wrongful convictions movements, generally, by diminishing the seriousness of false allegations and wrongful convictions and the extensive forms of devasting damage and harm that they cause to victims and their families, which is something that should never be mocked.

Conclusion

There is a saying that we can sometimes be our own worst enemy, which I think is particularly apt in relation to Jonathan King's narrative of innocence and how he has sought media attention through the use of films that mock the allegations against him. After closer analysis, however, it becomes clear that Jonathan is denying, emphatically, any involvement with the alleged crimes that he was accused of and convicted for, and that what he is accepting guilt for are crimes that should never been crimes in the first place and it was both correct and somewhat courageous for him to commit such acts when they were unlawful.

Indeed, it is only in hindsight that the general public comes to appreciate that breaking laws which treat us differently are, actually, in the interests of us all. We then collectively realise that it is equality activists who see with clarity the unjustness of such laws and who are prepared to, and do, pay the personal price for committing acts labelled as crimes which act against a more fair and just society for us all. An example might be anti-apartheid activists who refuse to accept people being treated differently and treated as though they are inferior on the basis of their ethnicity or the colour of their skin. Another, perhaps more pertinent example to the discussion here, are those who dare to challenge legal taboos such as same sex relationships, such as Alan Turing, the mathematician, who conceived modern computing and played a crucial part in the Allied victory over Nazi Germany in WW2. Alan Turing was also prosecuted in 1952 for homosexual acts, which were then illegal in Britain, and in place of prison, he accepted hormone treatment, a procedure commonly referred to as chemical castration. He died 2 years later from cyanide poisoning, with an inquest ruling that he died of suicide. In 2013, however, Alan Turing was pardoned by The Queen and the 'Alan Turing Law' denotes a 2017 law under which gay and bisexual men convicted of now-abolished sexual offences in England and Wales are retroactively pardoned for cautions or convictions under now repelled historical legislation that outlawed homosexual acts.

Although Jonathan King was never convicted for committing homosexual acts which were then unlawful, it is in this context that he might better be seen, not as a vile pervert, no matter how much he may embrace such a label for satirical purposes or to attract media attention, but, rather as part of a movement for sexual equality once his narrative of innocence and narrative of guilt are appropriately clarified and understood.

Jonathan asked me for my personal view, with which I will end. My hunch is that Jonathan knows very well that his claim of innocence is ambiguous, which is likely intentionally so for the attention it obtains for him and the confusion that it causes. I suspect that he revels in the negative attention that he and his films and other creative outputs have received since his convictions, which can be seen as an extension of the cartoon megamouth character that slags everybody off that he played at the height of his fame, only this time he gets to play the most despicable character of all - a child sexual abuser. Moreover, I don't think that Jonathan really cares whether the public love or loathe him. It's all part of the act, all part of a show where the thinking is that even negative attention keeps you relevant and being ignored signals irrelevance and lack of impact. Indeed, as I have gotten to know Jonathan a little better, I think that he would rather be wrongly called a nonce or a paedo that be ignored, which would be anathema to a self-styled old Queen who has always lived by Oscar Wilde's notion: "There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about". He said as much recently when I talked with him about all of the abusive messages under his posts on X (formerly Twitter) calling him a nonce and a paedo, and so on. He said words to the effect: "Oh, don't worry about that. It doesn't bother me. In fact, I love it. I love winding them up and getting them to react!" As I have shown, however, the way that you are talked about in the media or by the general public in relation to an alleged false allegation or wrongful conviction matters, and anything that can detract from positive media that contributes to concern and/or support for a possible victim of a false allegation and / or wrongful conviction is to be avoided. As such, if Jonathan is serious about wanting to overturn his alleged wrongful convictions, rather than continue having fun being hated on and loathed, he might adopt a different strategy along the lines suggested here to change the existing discourses that act against him ever obtaining a CCRC referral, clearing his name and obtaining some semblence of justice. I hope that Jonathan receives this analysis and my personal thoughts as they are intended and that others who read this, whether journalists or interested members of the public, will be encouraged to look more closely into Jonathan's case with a view to supporting an objective and unbiased investigation by the CCRC, which is urgently overdue.

By Michael Naughton

Dr Michael Naughton is the Founder and Director of Empowering the Innocent (ETI) and a Reader in Sociology and Law at the University of Bristol. Click here for more about Michael. 

Note: Before 1967 it was a criminal offence in the UK for males to have sex with other males. The 1967 Sexual Offences Act in England and Wales partially decriminalised homosexual acts for men aged 21 and over if done in private and with consent. In 1994, the age of consent for males to have sex with other males was lowered to 18, and in 2000 it was lowered again to 16, equalising the age of consent for both heterosexual and homosexual sexual acts.