Maverick with a knack for spotting talent and making enemies

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Seven years' jail for pop mogul Jonathan King

How King used his fame and wealth to abuse children

Jonathan King never lacked self-belief. Not many pop celebrities would presume to write a sequel to George Orwell's Animal Farm. Not many men jailed for seven years would have a category called How To Succeed on their personal website.

But then King's career has been one of success, affluence and unabashed narcissism, virtually from adolescence.

The image he now presents to the world of a seedy sex offender bears little resemblance to the one he presented for 35 years as a key figure in British pop music. Talented, original and funny, he spotted and developed groups that were to become household names. He also ran both The Brits and the Song for Europe contests for a time, as well as singing and producing number one hits himself – usually humorous songs released under daft pseudonyms.

In all, his songs sold more than 40 million copies. And he was still influencing the charts this year, when his pastiche of West Indian carnival music, "Who Let The Dogs Out", became a hit for the Baha Men.

He even claims to have been a dominant figure in the early success of such groups as Genesis (with whom he was at Charterhouse school), 10cc and the Bay City Rollers. Even allowing for the King exaggeration, he deserves some of the credit for their glory.

His sideline was controversy, soliciting fights with the likes of Paul McCartney and Bob Geldof and circulating his own industry magazine to settle personal scores.

And he provided the occasional delicious embarrassment, none more so than the performance of Samantha Fox and Mick Fleetwood fronting The Brits in 1992.

When the music industry gave the job of running The Brits to the infinitely more business-like ex-record company boss Lisa Anderson, he referred to her henceforth as Lethal Anderson in his private newspaper, The Tip Sheet.

He was one for feuds, carrying them on for decades. He had a running battle with Bob Geldof, because he despised Live Aid – "the worst show I have ever seen" – for the "self-interested motives of the bands involved". He criticised the Beatles, and particularly Paul McCartney, as money-obsessed.

But this was King in his declining years as a pop industry influence, a time when feuds, petty revenge and publicity-seeking controversies had replaced the quirky originality.

His debut song, "Everyone's Gone To The Moon" in 1965, was released while he was an undergraduate at Trinity College, Cambridge, and sold 4.5 million copies. This and the follow-up, "It's Good News Week", were ironic commentaries, satires on Bob Dylan, with catchy tunes that made him an immediate presence in the charts. That intellectualism quickly faded as King discovered the business side of pop and became rich.

After Cambridge he had his own TV series, Good Evening It's Jonathan King, running on ITV on Saturday evenings for six months.

He had a senior role in running Decca Records for the founder, his friend Sir Edward Lewis, in the late Sixties. In the Seventies he formed his own label, UK Records, and had hits on it with 10cc and others. In 1973, he was named producer of the year, and in 1975 he won record of the year for his rendition of Una Paloma Blanca.

He started doing reports from the US on Top of the Pops in the early Eighties and that developed into Entertainment USA, one of the most popular series on BBC2 in that decade, reaching more than nine million viewers. He started and produced No Limits, which gained ratings of nearly six million. He wrote a column in The Sun for eight years in the Eighties.

Even latterly he hadn't lost his eye for a good thing. While The Tip Sheet was most notable for its caustic attacks on big names in the industry, it also contained King's tips on bands to watch. Then unknown, the Corrs were among a number of winning tips he gave.

Of his personal life he says on his website: "I have a load of family and friends. Nothing too close, thank God. No appalling wives or children. They are so expensive and make a lot of unnecessary noise.

"But I'm surrounded by The King Mother, two brothers, Jamie and Andy, dozens of nephews and step nephews (thanks to AK who clearly has rabbit blood in his veins) and god daughters and other near relatives far enough removed to be pleasant company in very small doses but not irritatingly constant."