playland amusement arcade paedophile ring Child Sexual Abuser

September 1975 Playland Amusement Arcade paedophile ring members jailed Five men, including an Old Etonian former Lancers officer, were jailed today for their part in a “rent-a-boy” vice racket at an amusement arcade in London’s Piccadilly area.

The five were sentenced to terms ranging from 12 months to six years on a number of charges which arose from police investigations into activities at the Playland Amusement Arcade.

The court was told that young penniless runaway boys were attracted to Playland then became prey for men who offered them meals and shelter.

The five men were: Mr Charles Hornby, 36, Old Etonian, former Lancers officer, horse trainer and gentleman jockey – jailed for 12 months on conspiracy and gross indecency charges, and 18 months for attempting to pervert the course of justice.

Mr Andrew Novac, 29 – five years on conspiracy, importuning and indecent assault charges.

Mr Basil Andrew Cohen, 39 – five years for conspiracy, gross indecency and indecent assault.

Mr Malcolm Raywood, 43 – six years for conspiracy, living on immoral earnings, importuning and a sexual offence.

Mr David Archer, 28 – four years on five sexual offences and 18 months on three charges of gross indecency.

All pleaded guilty.

The judge described the nine-week hearing as “nauseating”.

He said what was sickening, was the way the men had tried to suggest they had helped the young boys.

“But these boys soon be came young prostitutes selling the only thing they had for sale – their young bodies”, the judge said.

September 1975 Wealthy Briton gets prison term over child vice racket The odd man out in a Piccadilly prostitution ring operating from Piccadilly Circus’s Playland amusement arcade was Charles Hornby, 36, a man who “had everything” but was sentenced yesterday to 2½ years in prison.

The other four in the vice racket to lure young runaway boys into prostitution – for wealthy customers such as Hornby – were listed on Old Bailey records as having “no occupation.” Their sentences ranged from 2½ years to 6½ years on charges of indecent assault, importuning and living off the earnings of prostitution.

But Hornby, Eton-educated, married to a former debutante, owner of a vast Gloucestershire estate where the family sometimes entertained Prince Charles, seemed to be a pillar of British society.

The only thing Hornby and others in the dock had in common, as the judge noted, was that “all of you are completely obsessed with boys.” The suggestion that accused were trying to help the boys was “the most nauseating part” of the nine-week rent-a-boy trial: said Judge Alan King-Hamilton.

Hornby sat with his head bowed as his lawyer spoke of his “secret shame” – the attraction to young men he had felt all through his army days and as a racehorse trainer, but never confessed to his wife of friends.

A former lancer and superior amateur jockey – because of his six-foot-four height bookies referred to him as The Lanky Lancer, Hornby later became a Lloyd’s under-writer.

His father was chairman of the giant publishing and book store company of H.

W.

Smith and his sister once was married to the Marquis of Blandford, later the 11th Duke of Marlborough.