Richard Desmond

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Richard Clive Desmond (born 8 December 1951) is a British pornographer, current owner of Express Newspapers and founder of Northern and Shell plc. Express Newspapers publishes the Daily Express, Sunday Express, Daily Star Sunday and Daily Star. Northern and Shell was notorious for publishing dozens of pornographic titles, such as Big Ones, Skinny and Wriggly, Forum, Posh Housewives and Asian Babes, prior to their sale to Remnant Media in 2004. Despite selling his magazines, he is still the owner of the most popular pornographic television channels in the UK, the Fantasy Channel and Red Hot TV.

[edit] Personal life

From a Jewish background, Desmond grew up in north London and left school at 14. His first job was for Thomson Newspapers, working in classified advertisements. He moved on to another company and by the age of 21 he owned two record shops. He acquired an interest in publishing and in 1974 published a magazine called International Musician and Recording World.

He is prominent in several Jewish charitable institutions and in 2006 was appointed to head Norwood, which is devoted to helping children in need. The appointment caused considerable controversy, but was defended by Rabbi Jeremy Rosen.^[1]

Desmond currently lives in north London.

[edit] Publishing career

In 1983 he published a British version of the American pornographic magazine Penthouse. Northern & Shell was the first company to move to the revamped Docklands and the Princess Royal opened the offices. When the company moved to the Northern & Shell Tower Prince Philip did the honours. Desmond's biggest publishing deal was the launch of celebrity magazine OK! in 1993.

Desmond attracted controversy over his £100,000 donation to the Labour Party.^[2] Several prominent Labour members, including Clare Short, broke ranks to question whether the party should be accepting money from a publisher of pornographic magazines.^[3]

After buying Express Newspapers in 2000 for £125m,^[4] Desmond became embroiled in a bitter feud with Viscount Rothermere, publisher of the Daily Mail, the rival of the Daily Express, largely derived from stories relating to Rothermere's private life. The Daily Mail ran several articles describing Desmond as a pornographer and Private Eye christened him "Dirty Desmond". Mail editor Paul Dacre, despite an eventual truce between the competitors, commented on Demond in the British Journalism Review (2002):

“

Richard Desmond is an appalling man. He is bad for British journalism. He’s bad for public life and he’s bad for civilized standards. For Tony and Cherie Blair to court him so assiduously speaks volumes for their moral elasticity. As long as I’ve got energy in my body, I’m going to devote everything to try to see him off.[5]

”

In April 2004, the Daily Express shifted its support from Labour to the Conservatives. On the same day Desmond caused a scandal by accusing the Daily Telegraph, which was then considering accepting a takeover offer by the German Axel Springer group, of giving in to Nazis.^[6] Desmond reportedly harangued The Daily Telegraph's chief executive and associates in faux German at a business meeting and imitated Adolf Hitler, before erupting in a tirade of four-letter words.^[6] On March 19, 2008, Express newspapers were forced to pay the parents of missing four-year-old Madelaine McCann £550,000 damages and publish a humiliating apology on the front pages of the Daily and Sunday Express, the Daily Star and the Star on Sunday after publishing more than 100 defamatory articles about the couple.

[edit] References