After attending Broad Street Secondary Modern School in Coventry, Innocent worked for a short time as an office clerk.

Realising quickly that he was not suited to this career, he turned instead to acting, studying at the Birmingham School of Speech Training and Dramatic Art.

[1] Innocent's television appearances include the 1969 pilot episode of Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased), The Persuaders!, My Late Lamented Friend and Partner as well as Callan, Crown Court, The Professionals, Minder, Inspector Morse, the Bursar in Porterhouse Blue, EastEnders[1] and as Lord Robert "Bunchy" Gospell in episode 6 ("Death in a White Tie") of the Inspector Alleyn Mysteries.

He appeared singing comic monologues and songs alongside Cilla Black in The Green Tie on the Little Yellow Dog, which was recorded 1982, and broadcast by Channel 4 in 1983.

On stage he appeared in a musical version of Alice in Wonderland at the Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith in 1986, and made his operatic debut in Gilbert and Sullivan's Ruddigore for a centenary performance in 1987 at Sadler's Wells.