Christopher David Denning (10 May 1941 – 24 June 2022) was an English
radio presenter
A radio personality is a person who has an on-air position in radio broadcasting. A radio personality who hosts a radio show is also known as a radio host (North American English), radio presenter (British English) or radio jockey. Radio personali ...
and
sex offender
A sex offender (sexual offender, sex abuser, or sexual abuser) is a person who has committed a Sex and the law, sex crime. What constitutes a sex crime differs by culture and legal jurisdiction. The majority of convicted sex offenders have convi ...
. His career effectively ended when he was convicted of sexual offences in 1974. He was imprisoned several times in the United Kingdom, Czechia and Slovakia between 1985 and his death in custody in 2022.
Middlesex
Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a Historic counties of England, former county in South East England, now mainly within Greater London. Its boundaries largely followed three rivers: the River Thames, Thames in the south, the River Lea, Le ...
Oxford
Oxford () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and non-metropolitan district in Oxfordshire, England, of which it is the county town.
The city is home to the University of Oxford, the List of oldest universities in continuou ...
, the only child of middle-class parents. He has said that he was a
rent boy
Male prostitution is a form of sex work consisting of the act or practice of men providing sexual services in return for payment. Although clients can be of any gender, the vast majority are older males looking to fulfill their sexual needs. Ma ...
from the age of 13 and remained so until the age of 18.
Radio career
His first radio experience was on a short-wave station in the United States as a teenager before travelling to Kenya to work on
British Forces Network
The British Forces Broadcasting Service (BFBS) provides radio and television programmes for His Majesty's Armed Forces, and their dependents worldwide. Editorial control is independent of the Ministry of Defence and the armed forces themselv ...
. He then returned to the UK in time to become the first announcer heard on
BBC2
BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's second flagship channel, and it covers a wide range of subject matter, incorporating genres such as comedy, drama and ...
when it began broadcasting in 1964. He worked for
Radio Luxembourg
Radio Luxembourg was a multilingual commercial broadcaster in Luxembourg. It is known in most non-English languages as RTL (for Radio Television Luxembourg).
The English-language service of Radio Luxembourg began in 1933 as one of the earlies ...
and Radio London before presenting the Saturday afternoon programme ''Where It's At'' with
Kenny Everett
Kenny Everett (born Maurice James Christopher Cole; 25 December 1944 – 4 April 1995) was an English radio Disc Jockey, DJ and television entertainer, known for his zany comedic style. After spells on pirate radio and Radio Luxembourg in the m ...
BBC Light Programme
The BBC Light Programme was a national radio station which broadcast chiefly mainstream light entertainment and light music from 1945 until 1967, when it was replaced by BBC Radio 1 and BBC Radio 2. It opened on 29 July 1945, taking over the ...
.
He then became one of the original DJs on
BBC Radio 1
BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It specialises in modern popular music and Contemporary hit radio, current chart hits throughout the day. The station provides alternative genres at night, including ...
, where he continued presenting ''Where It's At'', had his own weekly show and deputised as necessary for
Tony Blackburn
Anthony Kenneth Blackburn (born 29 January 1943) is an English disc jockey, singer and television presenter, whose career spans over 60 years.
Blackburn first achieved fame broadcasting on the pirate stations Radio Caroline and Radio Londo ...
on the latter's breakfast show. Denning was gay, and has said that he was '
out
Out or OUT may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
Films
*Out (1957 film), ''Out'' (1957 film), a documentary short about the Hungarian Revolution of 1956
*Out (1982 film), ''Out'' (1982 film), an American film directed by Eli Hollander
*O ...
' when he was working at Radio 1.
Denning left Radio 1 in 1969 after facing accusations that his job there came into conflict with his new promotional job at
Decca Records
Decca Records is a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis (Decca), Edward Lewis after his acquisition of a gramophone manufacturer, The Decca Gramophone Company. It set up an American subsidiary under the Decca name, which bec ...
, which the BBC had initially agreed to with provisos. He worked for Decca for two years. He then became the number two producer at
Bell Records
Bell Records was an American record label founded in 1952 in New York City by Arthur Shimkin, the owner of the children's record label Golden Records, and initially a unit of Pocket Books, after the rights to the name were acquired from Benn ...
and was involved in developing the careers of the
Bay City Rollers
The Bay City Rollers are a Scottish pop rock band known for their worldwide teen idol popularity, as a band in the 1970s. One of many 70s acts heralded as the "biggest group since the Beatles", they were called the "tartan teen sensations fro ...
and
Gary Glitter
Paul Francis Gadd (born 8 May 1944), better known by his stage name Gary Glitter, is an English former singer who achieved fame and success during the 1970s and 1980s. His career ended after he was convicted of downloading child pornography i ...
.
After his employment with radio stations and record companies, he ran his own music and video production business, and was part of a 1997 Radio One reunion with Terry Wogan and Tony Blackburn.
Legal history
In 1959, Denning was jailed in Germany for distributing pornographic images.
Denning's first conviction for
gross indecency
Gross indecency is a crime in some parts of the English-speaking world, originally used to criminalize sexual activity between men that fell short of sodomy, which required penetration. The term was first used in British law in a statute of the ...
and
indecent assault
Indecent assault is an offence of aggravated assault in some common law-based jurisdictions. It is characterised as a sex crime and has significant overlap with offences referred to as sexual assault.
England and Wales
Indecent assault was a broa ...
was in 1974 when he was convicted at the
Old Bailey
The Central Criminal Court of England and Wales, commonly referred to as the Old Bailey after the street on which it stands, is a criminal court building in central London, one of several that house the Crown Court of England and Wales. The s ...
, although he was not imprisoned. Before his conviction, Denning had been working for
Jonathan King
Jonathan King (born Kenneth George King; 6 December 1944) is an English singer, songwriter and record producer. 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, ...
's newly founded
UK Records
UK Records was a music label launched in 1972 by Jonathan King to distribute his own releases and those by some other artists.
During the 1970s, Denning was part of a group of child sex offenders based around a
disco
Disco is a music genre, genre of dance music and a subculture that emerged in the late 1960s from the United States' urban nightclub, nightlife, particularly in African Americans, African-American, Italian-Americans, Italian-American, LGBTQ ...
for young people called the Walton Hop. Other participants included Tam Paton, manager of the Bay City Rollers (convicted of child sex offences in 1982), and Jonathan King. All became suspects in Surrey Police's Operation Arundel, an investigation focusing on sex offenders, which ultimately led to convictions against King and Denning.
In 1985, he was imprisoned for 18 months for gross indecency with a child, and in 1988 for three years for indecent assault on a 13-year-old boy and possession of indecent photographs. In March 1996, he was imprisoned for ten weeks for publishing indecent photographs. The following year he was held in
Pankrác Prison
Pankrác Prison, officially Prague Pankrác Remand Prison (), is a prison in Prague, Czech Republic. A part of the Czech Prison Service, it is located southeast of Prague city centre in Pankrác, not far from Pražského povstání metro stati ...
in
Prague
Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...
to await his trial in 2000, which convicted him of abusing seven boys aged under 15. He was released in 2001.
After his release, he was wanted for questioning by Surrey Police, but an extradition attempt by British authorities in the Prague City Court failed because the alleged offences fell outside of the
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, and historically known as Bohemia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the south ...
's
statute of limitation
A statute of limitations, known in civil law systems as a prescriptive period, is a law passed by a legislative body to set the maximum time after an event within which legal proceedings may be initiated. ("Time for commencing proceedings") In m ...
of five years, but Denning was ordered to leave the country "indefinitely". He was arrested in August 2005 at
Heathrow Airport
Heathrow Airport , also colloquially known as London Heathrow Airport and named ''London Airport'' until 1966, is the primary and largest international airport serving London, the capital and most populous city of England and the United Kingdo ...
after returning to Britain from Austria. He admitted to five charges of the indecent assault of boys aged under 16 years of age, dating back to the 1970s and 1980s: he was convicted the following February and imprisoned for four years. Meanwhile, a European arrest warrant was issued in December 2007.
In 2008, he was extradited from Britain to Slovakia, where he was jailed in October for five years for producing
child pornography
Child pornography (also abbreviated as CP, also called child porn or kiddie porn, and child sexual abuse material, known by the acronym CSAM (underscoring that children can not be deemed willing participants under law)), is Eroticism, erotic ma ...
. The offences in Slovakia dated back to 2002 and 2003. He had been briefly held in custody in Bratislava during 2004 following a search of his house, but then quickly left the country.
In June 2013, he was arrested in east London as part of Operation Yewtree, an investigation into sexual abuse. He was re-arrested and bailed out in September of that year. The allegations made against Denning were not part of those relating to
Jimmy Savile
Sir James Wilson Vincent Savile (; 31 October 1926 – 29 October 2011) was an English media personality and DJ. He was known for his eccentric image, charitable work, and hosting the BBC shows ''Top of the Pops'' and ''Jim'll Fix It''. A ...
. In May 2014, as a result of the investigation, he was charged with 41 sex offences. In August 2014, Denning admitted to 29 of the charges in relation to the offences committed against boys. In November at Southwark Crown Court, he pleaded guilty to a further eleven charges. In all, he pled guilty to 40 sexual offences committed in the period 1967 to 1987 relating to 26 male victims, the youngest of whom was 9 at the time of the offence. In December 2014, Judge Alistair McCreath sentenced him to 13 years in prison.
Denning was charged with six offences stemming from the Operation Ravine investigation on 7 June 2016. On 22 August 2016, Denning pleaded guilty to 21 sex offences between 1969 and 1986, against 11 boys, the youngest of whom was 8. At Southwark Crown Court on 7 October 2016, Judge Alistair McCreath sentenced Denning to another 13 years in prison for these additional offences, running from the day of the court hearing.
On 7 December 2017, Denning pleaded not guilty to two counts of indecent assault and one of taking indecent photos of a child between March 1979 and March 1981. His trial was due to start on 11 June 2018, but the charges were dropped on 13 June.
Death
Denning died while in prison custody in Bedford Hospital on 24 June 2022, as a result of a bone infection caused by diabetes. He was 81 years old. His death was not reported publicly until October 2023. The
Prisons and Probation Ombudsman
The Prisons and Probation Ombudsman (PPO) is a public body, appointed by the Secretary of State for Justice. The PPO carries out independent investigations into complaints and deaths in custody. The detailed roles and responsibilities of the PPO ar ...
, which investigates deaths in prison custody, found that "when clinical readings first showed that Mr Denning needed emergency care, he was not transferred to hospital for treatment".