Ex-UKFast boss Lawrence Jones guilty of drugging and raping women

Lawrence Jones drugged the women so they were "partially conscious" before raping them, the trial heard

A multi-millionaire tech entrepreneur has been found guilty of drugging and raping two women in the early 1990s.

Lawrence Jones, 55, attacked them when he worked as a hotel pianist, decades before he entered the public eye due to his success with his tech company UKFast Limited.

As a result of this latest conviction, it can now be reported that he was also found guilty of sexually assaulting an ex-employee in 2013 after a trial in January.

He has already spent 10 months in jail.

Jones, of Hale, Greater Manchester, will be sentenced on 1 December at Manchester Crown Court.

A reporting restriction was imposed by a judge stopping the media from reporting on the first case, so as not to prejudice the jury in his second trial.

'Felt frozen'

The latest trial heard Jones had drugged the two women in the 1990s, leaving them "stupefied and partially conscious" before raping 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.

She told police she "felt frozen, as if she were made of lead" as Jones had sex with her so could not fight back and Jones had told her he could do what he wanted to her because no-one knew she was there.

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

At the first trial, the court heard that in January 2019 a former employee told police Jones had forced himself on her to have sex in 2010.

A second woman then came forward to say that Jones sexually assaulted her in a hotel on a 2013 business trip while she worked at UK Fast.

Lawrence Jones was convicted of sexual assault in an earlier trial in January which can only be reported now

The father-of-four was cleared of raping and sexually assaulting the first complainant but convicted of one count of sexual assault against the second complainant.

The prosecution said Jones had made "inappropriate comments" and asked the woman "intrusive questions" about sexual acts.

Despite "clear resistance" from the woman he had later become "quite forceful" and tried to prise her legs apart while trying to get on top of her, with the victim managing to escape and lock her door, prosecutor Eloise Marshall KC told the jury.

The court heard the woman later left UKFast as Jones "paid for her silence" with a £13,000 settlement which required her to sign a non-disclosure agreement.

Jones had set up UKFast with his wife in a spare bedroom in September 1999.

The company went on to provide web services to more than 5,000 clients, including the NHS, the Ministry of Defence and the Cabinet Office.

In 2015, Jones received an MBE for services to the digital economy and, by 2019, he employed about 500 staff across all his businesses.

Jones and his wife severed links with UKFast in May 2020 when they sold their remaining shares to a private equity investor.

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