How choirboy who led Prince Charles' procession became global conmanCwmni Da/S4CKenner Elias Jones was "popular, colourful, generous" and a serial fraudsterKenner Elias Jones was a performer from a young age. As a choirboy with "the voice of an angel", aged 19 he carried a cross leading a procession at Prince Charles's 1969 investiture in Jones's Caernarfon hometown, watched by hundreds of millions worldwide. But that flair for putting on a show helped him forge a life of deception and fraud across three continents. Now a new film follows the life of Jones, described by one US law enforcer as the "best conman" he had ever come across. The virtuous choirboy persona was perhaps his first con. Another chorister should have carried the cross that day, but Jones approached the bishop and told him all the other boys agreed he should do the job in front of the world's cameras."Nobody had agreed to it at all. Really sly," fellow chorister Kevin Doughty says in Con Jones: World's Best Conman. Filmmaker Marc Edwards has documented Jones's crimes for 30 years."I've never encountered a story quite like this in a novel, never mind in the real world," he says. Cwmni Da/S4CKenner Jones lied to get into a prominent position during the investiture of the Prince of Wales in 1969Jones became involved in politics while at Sheffield Polytechnic in the early 1970s. Described over the years as a "popular, colourful, generous, helpful character", it was no surprise the bright and charming young man was welcomed into groups warmly. But the early warning signs were there. Cwmni Da/S4CLee McKenzie and Kenner Jones married in Vancouver in the early 1980sHis first conviction happened in Sheffield in 1973 for obtaining money by deception. The three-year sentence was suspended for him to have psychiatric treatment in Denbigh's North Wales Hospital,A second fraud conviction at the Old Bailey in London in 1975 saw him enter prison for 12 months.
