Film Producer
Born 1968
Born on the 14th March 1968, Jasper Orlando Slingsby Duncombe was the eldest of the three children of Peter Duncombe, 6th Baron Feversham and his first wife Shannon Foy. Educated at Gordonstoun School, where he was four years behind Prince Edward, details regarding Jasper's early life are somewhat sparse. However the most significant event of his youth was when he turned up at the Corner Spy Shop in London whilst "high on cocaine and ecstasy" brandishing an imitation gun and a false moustache, with the intention of acquiring some surveillance equipment which he needed to "help him to identity his drugs dealer". Jasper was unsuccessful in this regard and later made an appearance at the Old Bailey on the 8th March 1993 where he admitted attempted robbery, possession of an imitation firearm, resisting arrest, and assaulting the shop owner, one Mohammed Kurdi. He was sentenced to three years imprisonment, and it might have been more had not his advisers pleaded for clemency on the grounds that Jasper had never fully recovered from the shock of his mother's sudden death on the 13th August 1976 at the age of only thirty. The inquest subsequently concluded that she had committed suicide after taking a "huge overdose of barbiturates".
Sometime later Jasper appeared to have shaken off his drug problems, as in 2002 he went into business with his friend Harry Colquhoun and set up a film production company with a starting capital of £2,000. Under the name of RelishXXX, their first production was To The Manor Porn, billed as "pure posh filth", and the company soon claimed to be one of Britain's leading producers of 'high class erotica'. The business appeared to prosper as they were soon making much of the fact that they were supplying material to National Health Service fertility clinics, for the encouragement of the male clients at sperm donor centres. However as Jasper himself admitted, "When we started, we thought we would take the UK porn industry upmarket, but that was nonsense. What people want is pretty full-on and we happily provide it", and therefore the company now simply describe themselves as the 'The Leaders of British Porn!', and distribute material to high street stores throughout the land (with more "hardcore material" being apparently mailed to customers from an address in Bruges) and also provide to the television channel Playboy TV.
According to reports both Jasper and his business partner retain a 30% stake in the company which is worth an estimated £3.5 million, and both are said to draw a "big salary". According to Jasper, RelishXXX are "shifting stuff by the pallet-load" and are now "undoubtedly one of the major players in the UK market", whilst he also set up another business Tongue in Cheek which installs porn-DVD vending machines in public houses.
Jasper had not been on speaking terms with his father since his Old Bailey appearance in 1993, and it was said that the 6th Baron had despaired of his "son's exotic lifestyle" and drawn up a will in 2001 whereby his fortune was left to other members of the family. It must be presumed that the success of Jasper's subsequent business venture did little to change his father's point of view, as with the 6th Baron's his death on the 29th March 2009, whilst Jasper inherited the title, the family estate of Duncombe Park, said to be to be worth some £35 million, passed into the control of a family trust and Jasper was quite disinherited. Not that this was much of a surprise to Jasper who had earlier said that he was "proceeding on the basis that I'm not going to get anything".
In 2009 Jasper married a photographer named Candida Boddington in anticipation of the arrival of his son Orlando Balthazar Duncombe, born on the 16th July 2009, who is now heir to both the Feversham title and his father's pornography empire.
SOURCES
- News in Brief, The Times, Aug 18, 1976
- Peer's heir jailed for three years - Jasper Duncombe, The Times, March 9, 1993
- Adam Helliker, Lord Porn's blue movies for the NHS, The Mail on Sunday, June 29, 2003
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/columnists/article-229238/Lord-Porns-blue-movies-NHS.html
- Jonathan Thompson, From blue blood to blue movies: porn baron risks family's wrath, The Independent on Sunday, 11 April 2004
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/from-blue-blood-to-blue-movies-porn-baron-risks-familys-wrath-559612.html
- Richard Kay, ‘Porn Baron’ misses out on stately home after being cut out of father’s will, Daily Mail, 04th March 2010
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1255210/Porn-Baron-cut-father-s-will.html
- ‘FEVERSHAM’, Who's Who 2010, A & C Black, 2010; online edn, Oxford University Press, Dec 2009 ; online edn, Nov 2009
http://www.ukwhoswho.com/view/article/oupww/whoswho/U249964
- The entry for FEVERSHAM from Burke's Peerage and Baronetage 107th Edition