Ex-UKFast boss Lawrence Jones drugged and raped women, jury hears

Lawrence Jones is accused of rape and four counts of sexual assault

A hotel bar piano player-turned-tech entrepreneur drugged and raped two women, a court has heard.

It is alleged Lawrence Jones, 55, attacked the women decades before he entered the public eye due to his successes at UKFast Limited, a tech company he owned and managed.

Manchester Crown Court heard he was working as a pianist at the time of the alleged offences in the 1990s.

Mr Jones, of Hale, Greater Manchester, denies two counts of rape.

Opening the case, prosecutor Eloise Marshall KC, said: "In 2021 and 2022, two women, who did not know each other, came forward to the police and made separate allegations of rape against Lawrence Jones.

'Partially conscious'

"It is the Crown's case that at the time Lawrence Jones committed those rape offences, he used drugs in order to facilitate them.

"The manner in which the drugs were administered in each case differs but the effects were the same.

"Both women were stupefied and left partially conscious but unable to react."

She added: "Such was the effect of the drugs that the women, even then, were unclear about what drug had been used and exactly what had happened to them."

One woman described being given something to sniff at Mr Jones's flat which had an "immediate impact" on her, while the other described being overly affected by a glass of wine and a few puffs of what she believed was cannabis.

The prosecutor said both women could not have consented to sex after being drugged and that the defendant would have known that.

Ms Marshall went on: "It has taken them [the women] many years to come forward and speak to the police about what Lawrence Jones did to them.

"By the time that they did, everyone had moved on and were in different roles in their lives.

"Lawrence Jones had become a local entrepreneur and at one time he owned and managed a company called UKFast Limited. It is a tech company and it was this success in that role which brought him into the public eye."

Mr Jones stood down from the firm in 2019.

The trial is scheduled for two weeks at Manchester Crown Court

It was alleged the first woman took an "instant dislike" to Mr Jones when, after complaining about her love life, he remarked: "Well you just need a damn good seeing to."

She also found him arrogant, the court heard, but did accept his invitation one night to go to his flat for a drink.

The woman recalled she took a "few puffs" from a spliff that Mr Jones had rolled and also had a glass of wine.

'Felt frozen'

Memories of what followed were like "snapshots or freeze frames", she later told police.

In one "flash of memory" she described how at the time she felt very strange "as if her body wasn't her own", and she felt numb.

She said she remembered falling backwards on to a bed and then coming round with Mr Jones "passionately" kissing her neck and chest.

The woman also recalled Mr Jones having sex with her, but did not fight back because she "felt frozen, as if she were made of lead", the court was told.

Mr Jones told her he could do what he wanted to her because no-one knew she was there, the court heard, and the defendant later became angry and accused her of being a "tease".

The second woman told police about an occasion where Mr Jones allegedly told her to sniff a small medicine bottle with clear liquid inside.

Ms Marshall said: "She sniffed it and instantly felt 'really, really drunk'.

"She describes being 'just instantly sort of floppy and relaxed all over, and really out of it'."

The woman said she was "not completely conscious", telling police: "It was so bizarre and so fast, and so sort of opportunistic.

"It was just really hard to reconcile. Almost like, 'did that really happen?"'

Ms Marshall told the court Mr Jones stated to detectives that he did not rape the first woman with the use of drugs or at all and vehemently denied raping the second woman.

The trial is scheduled for two weeks.

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