Conductor escapes jail
OrchestrasThe British conductor Jan Latham-Koenig, who pleaded guilty to three offences of soliciting a person he believed to be underage on a gay dating app, was given a 14-month sentence suspended for two years at Southwark Crown Court this morning.
Koenig, 70, was told by the judge: ‘I accept that there is clear remorse on the part of the defendant and that he has suffered – effectively this would have brought his career to an end. He is humiliated in the public eye.’
Koenig’s last professional engagements were in Moscow and Buenos Aires.
His lawyer said he was dealing with ‘feelings of distress’ and ‘upset he caused to his family and had not shown ‘self-pity or a lack of understand as to what needs to be addressed’. He was receiving therapy.
I suspect his next orofessional engagement will be in Moscow.
I doubt it very much. The Russian’s won’t let him in. Did you read what he actually did? Sent [redacted] to a supposed 14 year old, claimed to be 49 and wanted…well you read the reports. Not a nice man, I’m afraid.
Many strange things happen in Russia.
Many strange things happen in Russia.
Koenig was very lucky and obviously had a good lawyer. I hope he will not reoffend.
If he ever conducts again, he will indeed re-offend as his conducting itself is offensive.
I have heard him conduct at least three times and he has always been well-received. I don’t see any connection between the quality of his conducting and these offences.
I can’t predict future but I know he’ll be back conducting in Moscow in 2025. Caption this
Will he be stripped of his OBE award?
Oh wait, forgot for a moment that the Crown is cool with pedophiles.
Three grooming offences and no jail time?
White privilege. Which isn’t always guaranteed without its cousin, class privilege. Public school rules so to speak.
A tracksuit wearing, unemployed white guy from a council estate would be doing time for this no doubt.
He’s”dealing with the upset he caused to his FAMILY”? Does nobody in British courts speak for the victims? These crimes are not about the twisted pervs but about the lasting, often lifelong, damage they do to INNOCENT, YOUNG people. And the punishments ought to reflect that, not pay off the perv’s “suffering” (at being caught).
There is no ‘victim’ in this particular case.
Regarding the ‘INNOCENT, YOUNG people’ who often suffer lifelong damage, it should be noted that the ‘victim’ of the crime for which Mr Latham-Koenig was sentenced was an undercover policeman. As reported in the Independent, ‘No child was physically put at risk at any stage, the court heard.’
But might have been..
“Does nobody in British courts speak for the victims?”. Yes, they do. But, generally, not the defence counsel, arguing mitigation.
As I previously warned, this had
to be watched very carefully….. he gets off with a suspended sentence and that’s after admitting his perverted crimes/desires involving children..I wonder if we will ever know the true weight of influence his connections have..?
It’s outrageous to quote how
upset he is, about the shame he has brought to his family..any mention of how these poor abused children fee? Any thoughts about them? Hopefully his non consequential career is now over and if he gets caught meeting young boys again, he will have to be locked up for a long time.
There were no abused children. He was conversing with a police officer. As reported by the Evening Standard “…… No child was physically put at risk at any stage, the court heard.”
Is he friends with Prince Andrew?
Yes, he should have gone to gaol, but I feel uncomfortable that the ‘offence’ so prominently reported, going to meet a 14-year-old for sexual purposes, was based on what he believed, not on reality, as there was never a 14-year-old to be met. As was pointed out elswhere on SD, this would seem to constitute entrapment.
What is far more to the point is that he was found guilty of three charges – the other two presumably being actual offences. These alone should have been sufficient to justify a custodial sentence; in any case, had he gone to gaol, all three sentences would have been concurrent – so whether or not he was charged as the result of the entrapment would have made no difference to the time served.
Those who commit such offences against youngsters are sick and no punishment other than imprisonment would deter them from re-offending.
Yes, there is no connection between his offences and the quality or otherwise of his conducting. But the fact that he is still free to pursue his career with impunity would cause alarm and distress to his victims and their families. For that reason alone, even if I thought that he was the most outstanding conductor in the known universe, I would never ever wish to be in the audience at any of his concerts.
He has no victims, but you are justified in referring to victims more generally. He can’t conduct in the West any more as there would be hecklers. I personally would hear him again but might not cheer so loudly.
I would not cheer at all, or sit in his audience again.
I think there’s room for respectful disagreement on this.
He does have victims. We may not have all come forward, but I am one of them.
That’s very sad and you should definitely report your case to the police either directly or initially via a sympathetic third party. It’s always been hard to imagine that this conductor could have suddenly discovered his true nature when he was already 70. You might well encourage others to come forward and who might otherwise never get closure.
If you see Allen’s comment above he is referring disparagingly to JLK’s conducting.
… and let’s not forget that this person loved conducting not only in the UK, the EU or Japan, but countries like Russia, Latin America, even Middle East, where there is supposedly less justice for possible victims.
Now literally stripped of any career opportunities, probably even abandoned by the family, he may even get more time and chances to meet other young people. If there happens to be a reoffence, part of responsibility will be on the ‘carefully considering’ judge.
Why do you say he’s stripped of career opportunities? Robert King server actual jail time and still has a busy conducting schedule…
That’s how the situation stands now, as I can see. He was fired from all of his posts. If any orchestra engages him after being tried and plead guilty… well, there are unreasonable people, aren’t they?
What do you mean there are unreasonable people? It’s not a loaded question, I simply don’t know what you mean in this case. Thanks
‘Unreasonable people’ i.e. those who make conscious decisions of engaging those tried and found guilty.
My overarching point by the way was that people sadly don’t care enough in the longterm. It’s shocking that Robert King still puts on concerts, people go to them, and people work for him. There are no scruples in our industry.
There are no ‘scruples’ in all walks of life these days Truth Teller.
Why the inverted commas? Glorifying convicted peadophiles seems particularly distasteful. People seem to care less when they have bills to pay. It sickens me.
In the US (and I presume similarly in the UK) for the “entrapment” defense one, must show that the government originated the idea for the crime, planted the idea for the crime in the accused’s mind and induced the accused to commit the crime.
I don’t know the specifics of Koenig’s case but if it was an accused’s idea to go to an internet meeting site and his idea to interact with one of the posters there, and even after learning that the poster claimed to be 14, his idea to ask to meet, … there aren’t enough parts of the entrapment defense left to work for him.
It was the police’s idea yto send Jacob to this site posing as a 14 year old boy. It’s one thing if JLK groomed an innocent and inexperienced14 year old in his care but not quite the same if he arranges to meet a 14 year old who has made himself available on this website. Jacob must gave seemed ‘up for it’, why else would he be there? The judge may have taken account of this.
Ivan, the judge has already ruled. It wasn’t entrapment.
This is from Wikipedia
“Entrapment is a practice in which a law enforcement agent or an agent of the state induces a person to commit a “crime” that the person would have otherwise been unlikely or unwilling to commit.[1]”
Do you people really not think before you speak? If it were entrapment he wouldn’t have been convicted and the story we would be reading would be about how a peadophile was spared jail due to entrapment. The man pleaded guilty for goodness sake. Like Robert King before him, he will still have a career after this.
The point is that, on this occasion, he truly thought he was meeting a 14year old boy, he had groomed him, sent dic* pics to what he thought was a child. He coached him how to lie to his mummy, about how to meet, he sent him the rail fare. Sadly he also pretended to be in his 40’s maybe he thought this would be more palatable rather than the poor boy meeting an old man. Previously he admitted other counts and used the fact he was a classical musician to reassure and entice the child
Yet somehow, some of you feel sorry for him..? Think of the children who perverts like this do meet.
The deception about age works both ways.
Ivan, it literally does not.
It’s bad enough seeing his mesmerizing mug shot appear on this website every time an update arrives, but is his case really worth talking about anymore?
He played with fire and got burned, period.
Can we please move on?
For me it is, perhaps because I had a brief conversation with him mot so long ago. Ask Mr Lebrecht to remove the photo if it bothers you but nobody forces you to read the comments.
Grooming kids and no jail? Seriously! The whole system is a joke!