MULTI-millionaire tech entrepreneur Lawrence Jones has been jailed for 15 years for committing two rapes and a sexual assault.

Jones, 55, the former chief executive of Manchester-based web hosting provider UKFast, was convicted in January of sexually assaulting a female employee on a business trip in 2013.

Jurors in a second trial at Manchester Crown Court found him guilty last month of drugging and women two women decades earlier when he worked as a hotel bar pianist.

Jones, who was raised in Denbigh and has a property in Eryri, set up the web hosting provider 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 a MBE in 2015 for services to the digital economy.

In January 2019 a former employee rang police to make a string of allegations against Jones including that he had forced himself on her to have sex in 2010.

A second woman then came forward to say that Jones sexually assaulted her in a hotel on a 2013 business trip.