Premier League footballer Marlon King sentenced to 18 months in jail

Guilty: Marlon King was playing for Hull City when he attacked the girl. He has been sentenced to 18 months in jail
12 April 2012

Premier League football star Marlon King was sentenced to 18 months after being convicted of groping a woman's bottom in a club then breaking her nose when she rejected him.

King, 29, had left the 5ft tall student with blood streaming down her face from the blow which left two other women reeling.

The strapping Wigan Athletic striker claimed he had been the victim of mistaken identity.

But a number of witnesses identified him and he was found guilty at Southwark Crown Court today of sexual assault and causing actual bodily harm in the attack in the Soho Revue Bar last December.

King has such a long record that even his own lawyer once compared his tarnished record to that of disgraced boxing rapist Mike Tyson.

In 2002 solicitor advocate Michael Conning said: "His reputation will be tarnished forever, whatever success he achieves, he'll always be referred to in a Tyson-esque way as someone who has had a criminal past and that is a considerable penalty."

On the field he has enjoyed a meteoric rise from non-leauge Dulwich Hamlet to Barnet, then Gillingham, Nottingham Forest, Watford. He was on loan at Premiership club Hull City when he launched the night club attack.

He has represented Jamaica and commanded transfer fees totalling millions of pounds.

But off the field his record is far less glamorous.

While at Gillingham he was arrested for assaulting a police officer and driving a stolen BMW. At Inner London Crown Court in May 2002 he was cleared by a jury of assaulting PC Mark Searle after claiming he was trying to diffuse a "vicious row" between the officer and a footballing friend.

The jury did not hear King was one-and-a-half times over the legal drink-driving limit and had no insurance for which he was disqualified for 12 months and fined £450 for drink driving and a further £200 the second offence.

Following a second trial he was convicted of handling a stolen £30,000 BMW cabriolet - and his criminal past emerged in court.

The footballer had used a cloned credit card to buy a £1,200 laptop computer and smashed a glass panel when he was caught.

The court heard King had previous convictions, including wounding in 1997, theft from a person in May 1999, two counts of fraudulent use of a vehicle license and theft.

Bizarrely he had also told a probation officer that he was working for his dad as a labourer when he was constantly in the local paper headlines for scoring a hatful of goals for Gillingham.

King claimed he had bought the X-registration BMW from a "bloke named Bigga" but was found guilty and jailed for 18 months.

The term was later reduced to five months.

King joined Wigan Athletic in January 2008, but was loaned to Hull City and Middlesborough the following season.

In November 2008 he was involved in a fracas with then-Hull teammate Dean Windass in a casino in Scarborough and fell out with manager Phil Brown.

The following month King was banned from driving for 56 days after being caught speeding at 106mph on a 60mph road.

Five days later he was arrested over the nightclub assault.

So far this season he has made three substitute appearances in the Premier League. His only start came in the Carling Cup second round.

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