本文发表在 rolia.net 枫下论坛Times Online and PA News

An orchestra conductor has been jailed for nearly four years after using his “god-like” status to grope a string of gifted teenage musicians.

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.
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* Conductor accused of assaulting school boys

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.<QA1> He was cleared earlier of a 15th similar count on the judge’s directions.

Imposing sentence totalling three years nine months, Judge Hezlett Colgan told King - whose career and reputation have been shattered by his victims’ revelations - that prison was inevitable for his crimes.

“Your victims were in their early or mid-teens at the time. These assaults took place between 1983 and 1994. In the case of four of them you were a trusted mentor and friend and trusted completely by their families. In the case of two of them your were the music master at the school they attended.”

The judge said that among the “aggravating features” was his “gross breach of trust”, as well as the “youth and vulnerability” of those he abused.

“Finally I bear in mind the impact your behaviour has had on some of them. An immediate sentence of imprisonment is inevitable.”

He added that while he would have to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life, the “radical change” in his life since the offences - marriage and parenthood - meant he did not feel it necessary to ban King from working with children in the future.

As the disgraced conductor was led to the cells he blew a kiss at his wife Viola, in the public gallery.

Outside court, Detective Constable Emma Macdonald, the case officer, said: “The conviction of King is testimony to the strength of character shown by his victims to come forward and confront what he did to them.

“The victims spoke of the detriment King’s actions had and, in some cases, continue to have on them.”

The court heard King, of The Old Rectory, Alpherton, Suffolk, was “very well-known in musical circles”. He made his debut at the BBC Proms in 1991 and, in addition to Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven, has worked on such box office successes as Shrek 2, The Da Vinci Code, The Chronicles of Narnia and Pirates of the Caribbean.

He is regarded as a leading expert on the music of Henry Purcell, having edited much of the composer’s work and written his biography. But beneath his “undoubted talent” and outward respectability lurked a serial paedophile - a veneer that began to crack when the first allegations against him surfaced in 2003.更多精彩文章及讨论，请光临枫下论坛 rolia.net

本文发表在 rolia.net 枫下论坛Earlier this month Robert King was convicted of "indecent assault" against 5 boys 16 years and younger (one was only 12) and given a prison term of 45 months. Hyperion has made clear that King's recordings will be retained in the catalog and they hope there will not be a boycott of the recordings in the mistaken belief that he receives royalties on the sales. The King's Consort is now being managed by King's wife and the direction of the King's Consort has been taken over by Matthew Halls. I have more than a few of King's recordings of Monteverdi, Vivaldi, and Purcell and they are excellent both in terms of their performance and sound quality. while I cannot regret having them, I admit it's a case of hating the sin but respecting the sinner. That doesn't mean that I feel that King should be allowed to go unpunished. Personally, I am satisfied that he will go to prison for his abuses and I regret the judge's ruling that he will not be banned from working with young men and boys after his release because he has since married and become a father. Marriage and fatherhood has not been shown to deter such abusers from such predations and the rate of recidivism for sexual offenses is quite high for such offenses.

Sadly, the name, "The King's Consort" now has a new level of meaning for me. How cynical to have called his group that.更多精彩文章及讨论，请光临枫下论坛 rolia.net

本文发表在 rolia.net 枫下论坛Saturday June 16, 2007
The Guardian

When the early music conductor Robert King was jailed, at the beginning of this month, on charges of sexual abuse of minors, his agent, Harrison Parrott, dropped his name from its distinguished main website list (John Adams, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Oliver Knussen, Sakari Oramo, and so on). One might have thought that, whatever the rights and wrongs of the case, a separation could be made between professional or artistic matters and the conductor's personal life. And besides, an artist who has just been sent to Wormwood Scrubs is going to need some professional assistance in sorting out his affairs. This is one thing that agents are for. Instead, Katie Cardell-Oliver, King's manager at Harrison Parrott, told me his future with the firm is still under discussion: "For obvious practical reasons, we can't represent him while he's unable to work."

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The initial reaction from Hyperion, the company for which King made 95 recordings, was also uncertain: no decision had yet been made, it was reported, as to whether to delete his discs from the list. In a few days, however, the possibility that, for instance, the 10 much-praised volumes of Vivaldi's sacred music would be found to be infected with paedophilia, and would therefore have to be burned, had been discounted. Instead, there came from Hyperion's parent company, Harmonia Mundi, the following carefully worded statement.

"The recordings of the King's Consort will remain available, since they have involved the efforts of literally hundreds of first-rate musicians and it does not seem fair or appropriate to restrict their work from sale. Mr King does not receive income from the continuing sale of Hyperion CDs." Implicit behind the second sentence is the idea that one might otherwise wish to boycott, say, the Monteverdi series, or the Purcell anthems series, on grounds of disapproval of King's private life. But now we know he was not on a royalty.

These long-running series of comprehensive recordings are what makes Hyperion distinctive and worthwhile as a company. Leslie Howard's complete Liszt piano music, Graham Johnson's Schubert and Schumann songs, Robert King's Purcell recordings are part of a list that has managed, by organising itself better than other record companies (more intelligently and with a better sense of the purchaser's real needs), to weather the economic storm.

The professional catastrophe that Robert King faces is also, of course to a lesser extent, a catastrophe for Hyperion. Hyperion has been able and willing to keep its large long-term projects going and to keep the results in stock. It is an accumulative library within its chosen specialities.

So the work of the King's Consort, which the 20-year-old King founded in 1980 and built up from scratch, together with its associated choir, has also been able to make sense, accumulatively, over a quarter of a century. Scholarship and musicianship have gone hand in hand. Performing texts have been prepared, and are made available to the public. Our familiarity with the baroque repertoire has been increased. It was open to Hyperion - indeed, it still is open to Hyperion - to make such points with rather more emphasis. Perhaps I have missed some expression of professional loyalty on their part. If so, I apologise.

It is, of course, very hard to extend sympathy to someone in King's position without seeming to overlook, or to condone, offences against minors. For my part, once the court has done its work, and the sentence of, in this case, three years nine months has been set in motion, I think that there is every reason for the individual to feel sympathy for the convicted. We are individuals. We are not the state. We are not obliged to agree with the sentence, and nobody can prevent us from keeping an open mind about the verdict.

For the ordinary, anonymous private citizen convicted in such cases, there is the sentence itself, and there is what you might call the multiplier: you lose your job, very likely your home, you are submitted to persecution by fellow prisoners, and so forth. There are many aspects to this multiplier, which continue well after your release. Anyone who has watched the multiplier in action will be bound to feel horror at its effects.

For the artist, there are all these aspects of the multiplier, and then some more. The case of Robert King has unique ramifications. The judge recognised some of these when not ruling against any future work with children. King, as a married man with a young child, was deemed to have entered a new phase in his life. And this decision is crucial to anyone who works with early vocal music. To be debarred for life from working with the male treble voice would have been a harsh fate.

As it is, the King's Consort and its choir are being conducted, in the immediate future, by their recently appointed associate, the harpsichordist Matthew Halls. The consort is managed by King's wife, who stood by her husband throughout the case. Presumably the future of the whole operation is in some question. It is a tragedy for all concerned. And I strongly believe that when our most distinguished artists are in such terrible situations - whether or not they brought it on themselves - we should offer them some kind of support, not because, as artists, they deserve a better treatment than anyone else, but simply because we have so much to thank them for.更多精彩文章及讨论，请光临枫下论坛 rolia.net