Lawrence Jones’ daughters sob as £700m tech tycoon once dubbed ‘Britain’s nicest boss’ is found guilty of drugging and raping two women 30 years ago – as it is revealed he has spent the last nine months behind bars for sex attack on colleague

A multi-millionaire tech tycoon once known as ‘Britain’s nicest boss’ was today found guilty of drugging and raping two ‘stupefied’ women while working as a hotel pianist almost 30 years ago – with his two daughters sobbing in court as the verdicts were returned. 

Former tech tycoon Lawrence Jones, 55, pounced on both women at his flat while earning a living as a musician in the early 1990s. In both cases, they were rendered ‘stupefied and left partially conscious but unable to react’ after the UKFast founder used drugs to ‘facilitate’ their rape. 

One was ‘given something to sniff, which had an immediate impact on her’, lasting the ‘very few minutes’ it took Jones to rape her, prosecutors said. The other was ‘given a glass of wine and something which she believed was cannabis to smoke’, but ‘again the effect was pretty quick’.

Following the guilty verdicts – which took the jury just over four hours – it can now be reported that Jones has spent the past nine months behind bars after being convicted of sexually assaulting a female employee at a London hotel. 

Before his stunning downfall, the father-of-four – who left school in north Wales with just four O-levels – had built a £700million fortune and a reputation as a business guru, playing chess against Sir Richard Branson on Necker Island and regularly featuring on the BBC.

His success saw him appointed MBE for services to the digital economy, and he twice donated £100,000 to the Conservative Party. Jones’ loyal wife Gail – with whom he shares four daughters – had stood by him during the trial. 

Former tech tycoon Lawrence Jones was today found guilty of drugging and raping two women 

Jones, of Hale Barns, Greater Manchester, was appointed MBE for services to the digital economy

Jones’ loyal wife Gail – with whom he shares four daughters – had stood by him during the trial

Last January the Bentley-driving former cathedral chorister was convicted of sexually assaulting an employee – then a recent graduate – on a business trip at a penthouse hotel suite in 2013. 

The woman, who claimed Jones had instructed her that as part of her role she needed to ‘look like a Bond girl’, told police Jones had grabbed her legs as they sat on a sofa, saying: ‘Let me see your knickers.’

The millionaire then tried to push her thighs apart and get on top of her, she alleged, as she cried out: ‘No!’

‘He was pulling my dress down, pulling the top down,’ she added. ‘I was terrified, I was really scared. I felt like he was trying to have sex with me if I’m being honest. It was almost like I was his.’ 

The two rapes he was convicted of today took place in a flat in Salford, Greater Manchester between 1993 and 1994 when Jones was about 25.

But the victims did not come forward until ‘many years’ later, by which time Jones was ‘in the public eye’ as a result of becoming a successful entrepreneur. 

The first victim, Woman A, met Jones while working in Manchester city centre. 

She took a dislike to Jones after his response when she was ‘complaining’ about her ‘love life’, prosecutor Eloise Marshall KC told jurors.

Jones allegedly told her ‘well you just need a damn good seeing to, you just need a good f******, don’t you?’.

According to Woman A, ‘she not only disagreed with his politics but found him arrogant’.

However in late 1993, Jones asked her to come to his flat for a drink and a ‘chat’ so they could ‘get to know one another’.

She agreed and arrived alone at the ‘dimly lit’ flat after midnight, where Jones poured her a glass of wine – probably red – before rolling a ‘spliff’.

He then sat down next to her – ‘manspreading towards her on the sofa’, she later recalled – while she had a couple of drags on the joint and one glass of wine.

But the woman would later say her memories of what happened are ‘like snapshots or freeze frames’.

She later told police she recalled going to the toilet and feeling ‘ill’ – ‘spaced out, very floaty and not… right at all’.

Jones inside the Salford flat where the rapes took place. One of the women described him as having poor hygiene 

At the time he was earning a living as a pianist. He is pictured on the piano inside his Salford flat 

A young Jones on the phone inside the messy apartment in Salford 

In another ‘flash of memory’, she remembered Jones standing with his arms around her.

She felt ‘very strange, as if her body wasn’t her own, she felt numb’. 

Then she recalled ‘falling backwards onto the bed’ and ‘coming round’ to find Jones ‘kissing her neck and her chest passionately with one hand going around her waist onto her back and the other hand on her left breast’.

At this point she believes she was bare-legged and had no top on. She believes she asked Jones something like ‘What are you doing?’

But he responded with something like ‘it’ll be our secret’ and ‘it’ll be good for you’, she said.

The woman said Jones warned her that he could do what he wanted to her because no-one knew she was there. 

Her next memory was when she ‘came round’ the following morning, with Jones booking her a taxi so she wouldn’t be late for work.

She felt ‘really, really rough, really sick with a headache as if she had had a big night out’ rather than how she would expect to feel after just one glass of wine.

Feeling ‘numb’ and ‘in shock’, she went home after her shift and had a shower.

Woman A just wanted to feel ‘normal’, she later told police.

She told three friends at the time about what had allegedly happened, Ms Marshall said, and later spoke to a counsellor and a police officer, although she did not make a formal complaint at that stage.

Her account to them was ‘consistent’ with what she would go on to tell police in 2021, jurors were told.

Jones as a high-flying businessman playing chess against Sir Richard Branson on Necker Island

The second alleged incident involved a woman in her early 20s whom Jones had met while playing piano at Manchester bars, and also trying to establish a company managing musicians.

She told police she was chatting with Jones – who she described as having ‘poor hygiene’ and ‘a real ‘Ew’ about him’ – at his flat in 1993 or 1994 when he asked how old she was.

When she gave her age, Jones allegedly replied ‘look at you, you’re gorgeous’.

Jones then allegedly told her to sniff a small medicine bottle with a clear liquid inside it.

Woman B agreed – something the court heard now ‘surprises’ her – ‘and instantly felt really, really drunk’, prosecutor Eloise Marshall said.

She told police how she became ‘instantly sort of really floppy and relaxed all over and really out of it’.

The court heard she felt ‘Whoa’ and decided just to ‘lie back’ on a bed as she felt ‘light-headed and not completely conscious’.

But as she was lying on her back with her eyes shut, Jones had sex with her.

She told jurors that Woman B recalled how ‘there was no kissing, no conversation and no foreplay’.

It lasted about 30 seconds, according to Woman B who said it had been ‘bizarre and so fast, and so sort of opportunistic’.

Jurors were told her reaction had been almost like: ‘Did that really happen?’

Before his stunning downfall, Jones – seen outside court – built a £700million fortune and a reputation as a business guru

Rather than being ‘angry’, she felt ‘shocked’, but also that it was her fault as she had not ‘fought back’, Ms Marshall said.

She questioned at the time whether it could be classified as rape as it had not been violent, she had not been pinned down and she did not try to scream or push him off, jurors were told.

As a result, she was subsequently not ‘confident enough’ to accuse Jones of raping her, describing herself as ‘naïve’.

Feeling no-one would believe her, she decided to ‘park it’, although she later told her future husband and a close friend. She made a formal complaint to police in April 2022.

Interviewed by detectives in February 2022 about Woman A’s allegation, Jones made no comment to ‘almost every question’ he was asked. 

He provided a prepared statement in which he denied raping her, with or without the use of drugs.

Jones was interviewed about Woman B’s allegations in July 2022, making no comment to the questions he was asked.

However in a prepared statement he accepted having known her but ‘vehemently’ denied raping her.

The trial will hear evidence about the different drugs that Jones may have used based on the women’s accounts.

Jones, of Hale Barns, Greater Manchester, will be sentenced on December 1. 

Revealed: Double rapist businessman had already been convicted for sexually assaulting a female employee on a London business trip 

Lawrence Jones had already been convicted of sexually assaulting a female employee, it can be revealed today.

The 55-year-old was once hailed as ‘Britain’s nicest boss’ after the 500 staff at his Manchester-based web hosting firm were given perks including an on-site bar, ice rink, recording studio and even a ‘den’ for taking naps.

But the entrepreneur was today convicted of raping a two women in the early 1990s – and it can now be reported that he has spent the past nine months behind bars over the attack at a London hotel.

Before his stunning downfall, the father-of-four – who left school in north Wales with just four O-levels – had built a reputation as a business guru.

However he and his wife Gail – who founded the business from a spare bedroom – cut their ties with UKFast after a bombshell 2019 Financial Times article in which female employees accused him of bullying and sexual harassment.

Last January the Bentley-driving former cathedral chorister was convicted of sexually assaulting one on a business trip at a hotel in 2013.

The woman, who claimed Jones had instructed her that as part of her role she needed to ‘look like a Bond girl’, told police Jones had grabbed her legs as they sat on a sofa, saying: ‘Let me see your knickers.’

The millionaire then tried to push her thighs apart and get on top of her, she alleged, as she cried out: ‘No!’

‘He was pulling my dress down, pulling the top down,’ she added.

‘I was terrified, I was really scared.

‘I felt like he was trying to have sex with me if I’m being honest.

‘It was almost like I was his.’

Jones was acquitted of raping and sexually assaulting a second female former employee who alleged he had pinned her down and attacked her as she was preparing for the UKFast Christmas party at a trendy Manchester hotel in 2010.

A string of lurid revelations about his lifestyle and behaviour towards female employees emerged during the case, including his own claim that one performed a sex act upon him in the steam room of his £3million Cheshire mansion following a tequila-fuelled drinking session.

However the Press were barred from reporting the case or its outcome to avoid prejudicing a second trial after two women accused Jones of raping them in the 1990s.

He has been behind bars ever since after a judge rejected a bail application backed by sureties totalling £1.4million, saying there was a risk he could flee the country.

That conviction can today be reported after the judge lifted restrictions following his conviction for raping the two women while earning a living as a hotel pianist in the 1990s.

In both cases, the women – neither of whom knew one another – were rendered ‘stupefied and left partially conscious but unable to react’, Manchester Crown Court was told.

One claimed Jones invited her to his Salford flat for a late night drink in late 1993.

She told police she began feeling ‘spaced out’ and ‘very floaty’ after he poured her a glass of wine and rolled her a cannabis joint.

When she ‘came round’, she found him ‘kissing her neck’ before a ‘grinning’ Jones then had ‘forceful’ sex with her.

The other alleged victim alleged that Jones told her to sniff a small medicine bottle with a clear liquid inside.

She claimed she immediately felt ‘relaxed all over and really out of it’, and slumped onto a bed where she alleged that Jones had ‘opportunistic’ sex with her.

Jones insisted he had no recollection of meeting one of the women, and admitted having sex with the other but insisted it had been consensual, saying he had ‘absolutely not’ raped her.

Despite not knowing one another, both women gave almost identical descriptions of the lay-out of the apartment.

Their accounts clashed with Jones’s account of what the flat was like after being questioned over the first allegation – a lie which was exposed, the prosecution claimed, when the second accuser independently corroborated her description.

Damagingly, Jones also admitted under cross-examination that he had used chemicals to enhance sex as a single man.

Jones agreed he would give women ‘poppers’ – amyl nitrate – to sniff and inhale the stimulant himself saying it gave him a ‘nice warm fuzzy feeling’.

But he maintained he would never give any substance to a woman without her consent and denied both rape accusations, saying they ‘never happened’.

The jury’s verdicts provoked gasps and tears from his wife of 21 years and business partner Gail, who has stood by him throughout his spectacular fall from grace, attending every day of both trials.

She hugged two of the couple’s daughters who sobbed and shook as the jury foreman delivered their verdicts.

The glamorous 45-year-old gazed at her husband with apparent adoration, shooting him cheery grins – despite claims made in court ahead of his first trial, but never placed before a jury, that he spoke to her in a ‘horrendous way in front of other people’ at work, calling her ‘stupid’.

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