"King" of violence??

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Premier League star jailed for punching girl in face 'will find another club when he is released'

 

 

By Sam Greenhill

Last updated at 11:26 AM on 31st October 2009

 

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• Marlon King unmasked as serial offender
  
• Footballer maintains his innocence
  
• Agent says 'disappointed' King will appeal
  

Disgraced millionaire footballer Marlon King will be signed by another club when his jail sentence is finished, his agent insisted today.

 

The player was sacked by Wigan yesterday after being jailed for 18 months for groping a woman and then smashing her in the face after she rejected him.

But today his agent Tony Finnigan said that prison would change King for the better and that he would have good career prospects on release.

 

 

Marlon King arrives at Southwark Crown Court with his wife Julie yesterday

 

 

Mr Finnigan said: 'I don't want to name names but there are lots of players in this country who have fallen short of the law, done the crime, done the time, come out, and I'm sure if you're sitting in a six by six you do have time to reflect on the change you make as a person in your life.

 

'Forget about playing football here, just as a human being you're going to be different.

 

'He still will be a good goalscorer and I'm sure someone will want his signature to play football and do the job that he's best at.'

Today it emerged that King has 13 previous convictions including theft, assaulting a police officer and wounding.

In a criminal career that ran parallel to his sporting one, the 29-year-old was given a succession of fines and community service orders - but only once was he actually jailed.

Yesterday he lost both his liberty and his job as a soccer player after a Southwark Crown Court jury found him guilty of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and sexual assault by touching.

Within minutes of the verdict, he was sacked by his club Wigan Athletic.

 

Chairman Dave Whelan, who said he learned details of the trial only days ago, said: 'He is absolutely sacked.

 

Evidence: Marlon King's victim

 

'We will not tolerate football players who get sent to jail for 18 months.'

But the £40,000-a-week star will still earn earn another £228,000 from behind bars during a 40-day notice period.

King is now a convicted sex attacker who must sign the Sex Offenders Register.

 

That means that if the Jamaican international ever returned to football in Britain he would have to notify police of any intention to travel abroad for matches.

King had been on a boozy night out with friends in December last year to celebrate news that his wife was expecting their third child and to mark scoring a winning goal for Hull City, where he was on loan.

Just two days earlier he had been banned from driving for eight weeks after speeding at 106mph on a 60mph road.

Onlookers said he appeared to be drunk or on drugs as he tried to force his attentions on girls in the Soho Revue Bar in London's West End.

When a 20-year- old student objected to him touching her bottom, King sneered: 'Don't you know who I am? I'm a millionaire.

 

'You're not even in my league.'

 

Minutes later, after the slightly-built woman tried to stop him touching her hair, he swung his fist and knocked her to the ground, breaking her nose.

 

The blow was so hard that two of her friends were knocked to the floor with her.

Yesterday, after the jury brought in 10-2 guilty verdicts, Judge Nicholas Loraine-Smith told King to pay his victim £3,125 compensation and £1,600 prosecution costs.

 

 

The player showed no reaction as he was convicted but sat open-mouthed as the judge told him: 'You have shown not a hint of shame for your disgraceful and arrogant behaviour'.

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As King's victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, sat holding the hand of an aunt, the judge continued: 'You broke her nose, and that can still be seen, and you cut her lip.

'You are 29, you are just over six feet and you are a professional footballer.

 

'She is a comparatively slight woman, just over five feet tall.'

As the sentence was delivered , several of King's supporters stormed from court, swearing at the judge.

 

One screamed: 'This is a clear case of institutional racism.

 

'You should not be up there... Up the National Front. Heil Hitler.'

King attacked the woman at the Soho Revue Bar in London last December

 

 

King, of Waltham Cross, Hertfordshire, had claimed he was the victim of mistaken identity.

 

But several witnesses noticed his distinctive gold tooth and a former team-mate, Ryan Watts, told the court he recognised King.

 

Sacked: Wigan Athletic striker Marlon King was sacked by the club yesterday

 

King is preparing to appeal against his conviction. His agent Tony Finnegan said: 'I understand the lawyers are looking at the files and the transcripts to launch an appeal.'

 

Finnegan said he was "110%" confident King will find another club, if Wigan

carry out their pledge to dismiss him.

'He's employed in football to score goals. Anyone who's played with Marlon

King will tell you he's a great professional,' Finnegan said.

 

'When he trains he works hard, he's a leader and he's a winner, and he scores

goals - he's good at it.'

Finnegan added: 'If he fails again he'll go and suffer the consequences.'

 

Discussing King's time in jail, Finnegan said the 29-year-old 'will have to do

some soul-searching', however he was critical of the Professional Footballers'

Association, whose deputy chief executive Bobby Barnes claimed King had brought

the situation on himself.

 

'I thought Bobby Barnes' comments were out of order,' Finnegan said.

'I thought Bobby should have been alongside him at the court to see how it

developed during the week.'

 

He added: 'What's the union there for? To support their members. Why wouldn't

they support him? They're supporting other players.'

 

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1223737/Marlon-King-Premier-League-star-faces-jail-attacking-woman-spurned-disgusting-advances.html#ixzz0VW3IaTMZ

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Pictured: Battered face of girl attacked by jailed football star Marlon King

 

 

By Sam Greenhill

Last updated at 11:45 PM on 01st November 2009

 

 

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Covered in blood, this is Marlon King's victim minutes after he smashed her in the face.

Emily Carr was punched so powerfully by the footballer that she felt she had been hit with a brick. Her nose is permanently disfigured.

King, 29, a £35,000-a-week striker for Premier League Wigan Athletic, was jailed on Thursday for lashing out at the 20-year-old student when she spurned his crude advances in a club.

 

 

Pain: Emily Carr moments after the nightclub attack by Marlon King

 

 

Two more women came forward at the weekend to say they had been hit by King, who has 13 criminal convictions, including three for attacks on women.

 

Miss Carr relived the night last December when the 6ft 1in footballer turned on her in the Soho Revue Club in London.

She was talking to friends when she felt someone grab her bottom: 'I swung round to see King smirking, looking me up and down and leering.

 

Thug: Marlon King leaves court with wife Julie

 

 

'I looked him in the eye and slowly told him: "Don't do that! Don't touch me!" His eyes were all over the place and he seemed quite drunk.

'He then dropped his head down into my face and said, "You're not even in my league love, not even in my league. I'm a multi-millionaire, love".'

 

Then, like a boxer, King took a step back to gather his full force for the blow to slightly-built Miss Carr's face.

 

Recovering: Miss Carr waived her right to anonymity because she wanted the public to know the truth

 

 

 

Victim: Miss Carr arrives for court

 

'I never saw his hand, it came completely out of the blue,' she told the News of the World. 'I was knocked off my feet. It was a blur but luckily I didn't lose consciousness. I felt all this warm liquid trickle down my face.

'Blood was pouring out of my lip where my teeth went through, and my nose was broken.'

 

A surgeon has told Miss Carr, in her final year of a politics degree at Kingston University in Surrey, that the bones in her nose are so badly smashed she will be left with a permanent bulge.

King was fired from Wigan Athletic minutes after he was given 18 months at Southwark Crown Court for sexual assault and actual bodily harm.

But yesterday Gordon Taylor, chief executive of the Professional Footballers' Association, provoked outrage by offering the union's support for King.

He said: 'Everybody in life can have big problems to face. If he needs help to get his life back on track I assure you we'll be there for him.'

 

Miss Carr waived her right to anonymity, as the victim of a sexual assault, because she wanted the public to know the truth.