A disgraced multi-millionaire tech tycoon has been stripped of his MBE after he was jailed for drugging and raping two women.
Lawrence Jones, 55, who was once dubbed ‘Britain’s nicest boss’, was handed a 15 year prison term in December 2023 after being found guilty of sex attacks on three women.
The father-of-four was convicted of drugging and raping two ‘stupefied’ women in the early 1990s while earning a living as a hotel pianist.
Following their verdicts, it was revealed that back in January he was convicted of sexually assaulting a woman employee of UKFast back in 2013.
Jones was appointed a MBE for ‘services to the digital economy’ in the 2015 New Years Honours list. However, he has now had this honour ‘cancelled and annulled’ by King Charles following his convictions late last year.
It was announced in the London Gazette on Friday.
The official statement reads: ‘THE KING has directed that the appointment of Lawrence Nigel JONES to be a Member of the Civil Division of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, dated 31 December 2014, shall be cancelled and annulled and that his name shall be erased from the Register of the said Order.’
Jones was convicted following two trials at Manchester Crown Court last year.
Disgraced tech tycoon Lawrence Jones, 55, has been stripped of his MBE after he was jailed for drugging and raping two women (pictured with his medal)
Businessman Jones – seen outside court – pounced on both women at his flat while working as a hotel pianist in the early 1990s. Pictured outside Manchester Crown Court in January
Shortly after, Manchester Metropolitan University stripped him of his honorary doctorate which he was awarded in 2016.
Jurors were unanimous in their decision to find him guilty of two counts of rape.
It was then revealed that Jones, who founded the Hulme based tech firm UK Fast, had already spent 10 months in jail after being convicted of sexual assault after another trial in January.
He was found guilty of sexually assaulting a woman in a hotel room during a business trip a decade ago.
In the second trial later in the year, the court heard that Jones also attacked two women in the 1990s while he was a piano player in pubs and hotels across the city.
Jones was sentenced to 14 years for the rape of Woman A, concurrently with a sentence of seven years in respect of the rape committed on Woman B.
He was ordered to serve a year, consecutively, for sexual assault.
Jones’s success saw him appointed MBE in 2015 for services to the digital economy (pictured with wife Gail)
Jones, who was once dubbed ‘Britain’s nicest boss’, was handed a 15 year prison term in December 2023
A combined sentence of 15 years was handed down by Judge Sarah Johnston who told him he had behaved with ‘entitlement, dominance and a total lack of regard for the rights and freedoms of women’.
She said the success of the £700million business empire Jones created with his ‘loyal’ wife hid the reality of a workplace that was ‘tainted by your attitude to women’.
Jones had built a reputation as a business guru, playing chess against Sir Richard Branson on Necker Island and regularly featuring on the BBC.
Jones, of Brooks Drive, was also ordered to sign the Sex Offender Register for life, and pay court costs of £52,242.
