Lawrence Jones, the founder of the Manchester based tech company UK Fast, has been found guilty of drugging and raping two young women in his flat.
The jury found him guilty on the two counts unanimously.Now the verdict has been given it has been revealed that Jones has already spent 11 months in jail after a sex assault conviction
The investigation commenced after Woman A bravely disclosed that she had been the victim of sexual assault back in March 2019.
Woman A first met Jones in 2013 and was a member of staff while working for Jones company – UKFAST – at the time.
For four weeks Jones continually asked her to meet him outside of work and told her that it was her duties to do so. Woman A then was invited by Lawrence Jones on a business trip to London.
They went out for a meal and while in a taxi, Jones acted and said inappropriate things to her making her feel very uncomfortable.
On the return to the hotel, they had a drink at the bar and returned to their rooms, of which Jones requested adjoining rooms. Jones made sexual advances towards her. Woman A continued to pull away and Jones became verbally aggressive.
Jones continued to pressure Woman A before sexually assaulted her. She eventually managed to get back to the safety of her room.
When Woman A returned home, she told her mother what had taken place and she resigned. Over the course of the following days and weeks and Woman A documented what had taken place.
In May 2019, Jones was interviewed under caution at Longsight Police station. He gave a prepared statement and then answered ‘no comment’ to all questions asked.
Jones was subsequently charged with a sexual assault against Woman A.
In a trial held at Manchester Crown Court, having denied the allegation against him Jones was found guilty of the sexual assault of Woman A in January 2023.
In January 2021, a second woman (Woman B) came forward and disclosed that in 1993 she was a student at a University in Manchester and during that time she and her friends worked at a bar/restaurant on Oxford Road in Manchester City Centre.
Soon after, one of Woman B’s friends began a relationship with Lawrence Jones. Jones regularly worked at in bars as a pianist where he also met Woman B.
On one occasion, Jones approached Woman B and invited her to come for a drink at his flat after she finished work. Woman B considered this for a while and decided that she should try to get to know Jones better for the sake of her friend.
Jones passed her a piece of paper with his address on and she got a taxi to his flat. When she arrived at Jones flat, he poured her a glass of wine and from this moment forward, Woman B only has snapshots of being in Jones’ bedroom and cannot recall how she got there.
Stating to the court that her body felt floaty, like her body was not her own and it was unusual as she only had one glass of wine. Jones began to touch her and sexually assault her; she told him to stop.
Woman B continued to refuse his advances and did not consent, she wanted to get off the bed and Jones became aggressive and shouted at her calling her names. He said, ‘she should realise that she could not treat men like this and shouldn’t lead them on’.
Woman B began to lose consciousness and then when she began to ‘come round’, Jones was sexually assaulting her and raped her. Woman B said how Jones smiled as he assaulted her and bravely spoke of her fear to the court room.
A few days later woman B called her friend who was in a relationship with Jones and disclosed what had happened and her friend ended their relationship.
In 1995, woman B was struggling to deal with what happened to her and so she self-referred to the St Mary’s Sexual Assault Referral Centre and sought counselling to help her. During the years after this assault, woman B told her friends what had happened to her, but she did not feel able to report this to the police at the time.
In January 2021, woman B received a newsletter at her place of work and the headline of this newsletter related to Lawrence Jones and that he had been investigated by police for sexual offences. This prompted woman B to speak with her colleague and she made the decision to report what happened to her to the police.
A year later, a third woman (Woman C) also bravely spoke of her experiences and disclosed to officers that back in 1993, she worked in several drinking establishments across Manchester with a previous partner.
During this time, her and her partner became friendly with Lawrence Jones who organised and played music events in pubs across Manchester. Woman C then split up with her partner at the time and moved out of her old flat.
On one occasion Jones came into woman C’s bedroom and asked her to smell a bottle of liquid he was holding; she did not know what this was and shortly after she had smelt it, she began to feel woozy and lay on her bed.
Jones then proceeded to rape woman C, she felt she could not do anything about it due to being incapacitated through the drug she had been given to sniff.
Following the incident, Jones became very unpleasant to live with and eventually woman C was forced out of the address due to his behaviour.
In 2019, Woman C bravely disclosed the offence to a friend while on holiday and then later disclosed to her husband. In 2022, she reported the incident to Greater Manchester Police.
Woman A disclosed her experiences to GMP in March 2019 followed by Woman B who disclosed her experiences to officers in January 2021, with Woman C bravely following suit in April 2022.
Isla Chilton, Senior District Crown Prosecutor for CPS North West’s Rape and Serious Sexual Offence Unit, said: “Jones raped two women with no thought for how his actions would affect them.
“By denying the offences, he compounded the harm to the women, attempting to evade responsibility for his actions. The jury saw through his lies and found him guilty.
“The CPS worked hard with Greater Manchester Police to build a strong case to put before the jury. To support the victims, we applied for them to give evidence by video interview and to be cross examined behind a screen so they would not need to face their abuser in the court room.
“I would like to thank the victims for supporting this prosecution and I hope this case will encourage others to seek justice. It’s never too late.”
Jones will be sentenced on 1st December
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