Richard Desmond

Richard Desmond ex Wiki
QUOTE
Richard Clive Desmond (born 8 December 1951) is an [ allegedly ] English publisher and businessman. He is the owner of Express Newspapers and founder of Northern & Shell, which publishes various celebrity magazines, such as OK! and New!, and British national newspapers Daily Star and Daily Express. Northern & Shell also owns Portland TV^[3] which, in turn, owns the adult TV channels Television X, Red Hot TV, and others.

In 2010, Desmond was ranked the equal-57th richest man in Britain according to The Sunday Times Rich List,^[4] with a net worth of £950 million. He was once again listed on the 2011 Sunday Times Rich List, with his fortune still at £950 million. In 2014, he was ranked 78th and worth £1.2 billion.^[2]
UNQUOTE
A Christian gentleman? NO! A gentleman? NO!

 

Jew, Pornographer, Foul Mouthed Oaf And TV Boss - Richard Desmond
QUOTE
The choice of Richard Desmond as the new owner of Channel Five beggars belief. Never before has a government regulator (Ofcom) lowered the threshold for the suitability of the prospective owner of a TV channel enough for someone like Desmond to control a potentially lucrative franchise. Desmond's success owes much to the general ignorance about his rise to power. Protected by Britain's libel laws and a pact among newspaper proprietors not to attack each other, Desmond has successfully concealed his colourful past to become a major media player in London.

The 59-year-old self-made billionaire deserves sickly praise for having risen from earning £1 a night as a young cloakroom attendant in a Tottenham pub to owning a successful global newspaper and magazine empire. Along the way, he has left dozens of victims who testify about his ruthless deal-making, which earned an ever-increasing fortune.

Exactly one year ago, Desmond lost a £4.5m libel battle against me in the high court. No doubt the jury was influenced by the threats, recorded and detailed, made to his investment adviser to recover some money. Desmond translated his threats into a double-page defamatory article in the Sunday Express to pursue a personal grudge against his innocent adviser. That misuse of the newspaper is exactly why he is unsuitable to own a TV channel.

The basis of Desmond's success is hard salesmanship, humiliation of employees and rivals, and draconian cost-cutting. But his achievement should be recognised. When he was just a humble advertising salesman for music magazines, Desmond perfected the art of persuading advertisers to pay top rates while he sharply reduced his own costs. In 1978 he launched International Musician magazine and the Demonde advertising agency with his business partner, Malcolm Green. Their success spawned friction. By 1981, the partnership was broken.

He scored a breakthrough in 1983 by persuading Bob Guccione to award him the licence to publish Penthouse magazine in Britain. Desmond persuaded Menzies and WH Smith to sell his expanding range of magazines. Overnight, he became one of Britain's biggest porn publishers and the provider of hugely profitable sex chatlines. In New York in 2005, Richard "Ricky" Martino – a man linked in court with the Gambino crime family – stood trial. Philip Bailey, who had been beaten up by the Gambinos, testified that Desmond had negotiated with Martino in London and concluded a commercial contract. Desmond has consistently denied the stories and a spokesman at his company Northern & Shell said at the time that Desmond had never met Martino.

In a portent of what would follow, Desmond appeared to enjoy such conflict. He never seemed to suffer any embarrassment, even over his porn TV programmes. With breathtaking audacity, Desmond profited by copying and beating the masters, especially by inventing OK! as a rival to Hello!. That coup was followed in 2000 by his purchase of Express Newspapers for a bargain price. "A dream come true," he said. His success came at a price. He clashed repeatedly with business partners and had ugly confrontations with his staff, including Ted Young, an executive editor at the Express. Like several of Desmond's employees, Young successfully claimed damages in 2004 from Desmond after alleging a physical assault.

But Young, like all Desmond's victims, has never received airtime. Desmond's genius has been to stifle his critics and flourish on Grub Street. Unbelievably, Britain's regulator has ignored his record and judged that he has passed "the quality threshold". Next stop, the House of Lords.
UNQUOTE
Tom Bower crossed swords with him and won. He is not really telling all here, just some.