Conductor jailed for groping youths

Robert King, 46, who has worked on film music for a number of screen successes, plied most with alcohol before attacking them at his home.

Some were assaulted as they slept, while others suffered his unwanted attentions at bathtime.

One of his victims was so desperate to escape his clutches that he fled from room to room until he found a bed to cower under, London's Isleworth Crown Court heard. Then he vomited. Another, just 12 when King first molested him, put up with the abuse for three years before deciding he could endure no more.

Like the other four teenagers the defendant targeted - some of whom are now undergoing counselling - he kept his ordeal a secret well into adulthood. Then he wrote to the conductor, founder of the King's Consort orchestra and choir, accusing him of making his childhood "utterly miserable".

But in court King - regarded as one of the leading British conductors of his generation - dismissed his accuser as a "looney ... off his rocker", and the letter recounting his suffering as just "five pages of vitriol".

He insisted that all those levelling allegations against him were "absolute" liars. But Sarah Whitehouse, prosecuting, told the jury: "It flies in the face of reason that five people should independently make these allegations up."

The five-man, seven-woman jury, which spent more than 21 hours over five days considering the evidence, agreed.

The defendant, who has presented programmes for the BBC and toured the world with several orchestras, gasped, swayed and paled visibly as the first guilty verdict was announced.

Altogether he was convicted of 14 counts of indecent assault over an 11-year period. He was cleared earlier of a 15th similar count on the judge's directions.