Radio 1 DJ pleads guilty to 21 counts of child sex abuse
Chris Denning admitted abusing 11 children, some as young as eight, following police investigation into a youth disco.
Disgraced Radio 1 DJ Chris Denning has pleaded guilty to 21 historical child sex offences as part of a police investigation into a youth disco.
The paedophile, 75, admitted abusing 11 children – some as young as eight – between 1969 and 1986.
He pleaded guilty at Southwark Crown Court in London to 21 sexual offences – including indecent assault of men and boys and inciting boys under 16 and 14 to commit acts of gross indecency.
The offences relate to an investigation by Surrey police – named Operation Ravine – into alleged sexual offences connected to the Walton Hop, a teenage disco that ran from 1958 to 2001.
In court, Denning – who has been in and out of prison for nearly four decades – denied three counts of indecent assault, but the judge ordered that the charges remain on his file.
Prosecutor Jonathan Polnay reminded the court that Denning had a “very long record of offences against young boys”.
He will be sentenced on October 6, but is already in jail serving a 13-year sentence for sexual assaults on 24 different victims carried out between the 1960s and 1980s.
“Given the very long indictment he has pleaded guilty to, we take the view that these counts would not make a difference to (his) sentence,” Polnay added.
Denning was a close friend Jimmy Savile’s, abusing one of his victims at the fellow paedophile’s home.
His career ended after he was first convicted of sex offences in 1974 – since which he has been jailed for a number of child-abuse related crimes.
Denning – one of the founding presenters on the flagship station – used drink and drugs, including ecstasy, to groom his young victims.
