A multi-millionaire tech entrepreneur has been jailed for 15 years for committing two rapes and a sexual assault.
Lawrence Jones, 55, was convicted in January of sexually assaulting a female employee on a business trip in 2013.
Jurors in a second trial found him guilty last month of drugging and raping two women decades earlier when he worked as a hotel bar pianist.
Jones, from Hale Barns, Greater Manchester, set up web hosting provider UKFast with his wife Gail from a spare bedroom in September 1999.
The company went on to deal with more than 5,000 clients including the NHS, the Ministry of Defence and the Cabinet Office.
UKFast employed around 500 staff, including many young people, and its success led to Jones becoming an MBE in 2015 for services to the digital economy.
Sentencing him on Friday at Manchester Crown Court, Judge Sarah Johnston told Jones: “The three offences highlight that you thought you could behave with impunity.
“They are characterised by entitlement, dominance and a total lack of regard for the rights and freedoms of these three women and, in my view, an element of sinister premeditation.”
Jones received a 14-year sentence for one of the rapes, a seven-year concurrent jail term for the second and a 12-month consecutive custodial sentence for the sexual assault.
