Christopher David Denning (10 May 1941 – 24 June 2022) was an English radio presenter and sex offender.
[3] His first radio experience was on a short-wave station in the United States as a teenager before travelling to Kenya to work on British Forces Network.
[9] He then became the number two producer at Bell Records and was involved in developing the careers of the Bay City Rollers[9] and Gary Glitter.
[14] During the 1970s, Denning was part of a group of child sex offenders based around a disco for young people[15] called the Walton Hop.
Other participants included Tam Paton, manager of the Bay City Rollers (convicted of child sex offences in 1982), and Jonathan King.
[15][16] All became suspects in Surrey Police's Operation Arundel, an investigation focusing on sex offenders, which ultimately led to convictions against King and Denning.
[13] The following year he was held in Pankrác Prison in Prague to await his trial in 2000, which convicted him of abusing seven boys aged under 15.
[2] After his release, he was wanted for questioning by Surrey Police, but an extradition attempt by British authorities in the Prague City Court failed because the alleged offences fell outside of the Czech Republic's statute of limitation of five years, but Denning was ordered to leave the country "indefinitely".
[18] In June 2013, he was arrested in east London as part of Operation Yewtree, an investigation into sexual abuse.
[30] Denning died while in prison custody in Bedford Hospital on 24 June 2022, as a result of a bone infection caused by diabetes.