the times | Thursday May 26 2022 25
News
Taunting a boxing champion
might seem a foolish idea to most
people but that did not stop a group
of students who spotted Anthony
Joshua walking past their halls of
residence.
The 6ft 6in fighter was at Lough-
borough University when a group
in an upstairs flat began shouting
insults. They told the 32-year-old
fighter from Watford, a former
unified world heavyweight cham-
pion, that he was too afraid to fight
Tyson Fury, 33, who holds two of
the titles.
Joshua, who trains at the uni-
versity, decided to confront the
culprits. He was let into the halls
after pressing the entry buzzer,
found the flat and reprimanded the
students.
A video posted on social media
shows the boxer telling them: “Re-
George Sandeman
ROADSHOW ENTERTAINMENT/ENTERTAINMENT PICTURESPolice officer
sold threesomes
with partner on
adult websites
his sexual identity”. He claimed that
they did not constitute a business inter-
est and did not need to be declared to
the force. Taylor said the force had
taken an over-cautious and “prudish”
approach to his behaviour.
John Goss, the force’s barrister, said
that Taylor’s activities had not been
investigated as a crime because it was
not a proportionate response to the
“keeping or assisting in the manage-
ment of a brothel”. He said that Taylor
had brought the force into disrepute by
selling sexual services and failing to
declare a business interest. “He accept-
ed that he and his partner had met
other consenting adults and they had
received payment for this,” Goss said.
“We say that the exchange of money
for services is quite obviously a business
interest. It goes without saying that
accepting pay from members of the
public in exchange for sexual services is
conduct which is capable of bringing
the police into disrepute.”
The hearing was told that Taylor was
“already in the last-chance saloon”
because he had previously received a
final written warning for neglect of
duties.
Harry Ireland, chairman of the mis-
conduct panel, said: “This was a busi-
ness and therefore fell into the West
Midlands Police business interest
policy. DC Taylor should have sought
permission from the force to undertake
his activities.” He said that the miscon-
duct was “akin to a criminal offence”
and “acting as a prostitute”.
Ireland added: “This is not, as DC
Taylor claims, a moral judgment on his
sexual preferences. We find the con-
duct was a breach of the standards of
professional behaviour.”
He said that the misconduct was
significant enough that it would have
led to the officer’s dismissal had he not
already resigned.George Sandeman
Cinema Kevin Maher
Austin Butler, the film’s 30-year-old breakout star, succeeds with aplomb in the near-impossible task of emulating Elvis PresleyElvis
Cannes Film Festival
HHHHIA gobsmacking rock’n’roll fever dream
It’s the morphine, silly. It’s all about
the morphine. This new pop biopic
from the director Baz Luhrmann
plunges, early on, into a morphine
dripper and does not ever,
realistically, tonally, return. The
opioid is pulsing into the arm of the
infamous music manager Colonel
Tom Parker, played by Tom Hanks
under gallons of latex as a cross
between Rumpelstiltskin and Fat
Bastard from Austin Powers.
It’s 1997, and Parker is on his
deathbed, and setting the record
straight about his relationship with
his most famous client. “I did not kill
Elvis,” he says, via Hanks’s impish
cod-European delivery (Parker was
Dutch, Hanks does Franco-German).“I made Elvis!” And, whoosh, another
shot of morphine and down we go,
into the pipe, for an explicit visual
metaphor — this film will be a mind-
altering, pleasure-filled, rock’n’roll
fever dream. And at several points in
what is easily Luhrmann’s best movie
since Romeo + Juliet, it really is.
Credit here must go to its breakout
star, Austin Butler, as the King. The
30-year-old actor has risen to the
near-impossible task of emulating
Elvis with gobsmacking aplomb. It’s a
version that goes beyond imitation
into something much more
dangerous. During several stunningly
realised set-piece numbers (including
That’s All Right, Heartbreak Hotel,
Suspicious Minds) Butler’s Elvis seems
almost physically possessed.
He does the swivelling hips routine,
but he also brings an abandon to the
performance, as well as vocal stylings
(the actor’s singing, without digital
manipulation, is pitch-perfect), that
suggests something much more
elemental. Luhrmann stages an early
Elvis performance of That’s All Right,in 1955, as a disturbing Dionysian
event, where suddenly unleashed
teenage girls appear desperate, teeth
bared, to tear their idol apart. Elvis
knows it, and he feeds on it.
The power in the musical numbers
is drawn from Butler’s turn but also
from Luhrmann, who edits with the
kind of frenetic rhythms that are
almost impossible to resist (feet will
tap). They are the spine-tingling
highlights that make the entire
project a must-see movie.
The material around the numbers is
inevitably not quite as compelling.
The woozy yet cursory skip through
the life of Presley is thematically
justifiable (remember the morphine!)
but can feel shallow. The only
substantial characters in the film are
Elvis and Parker, with Priscilla (Olivia
DeJonge) reduced to second banana.
It hardly matters. Luhrmann has
never been a great dramatist. He has
the instincts of a pop video supremo.
And in the pop god Elvis Presley he
may have found his perfect subject.
In cinemas from June 24Boxer Joshua jabs back
at taunting students
member you’re running your
mouth because when I start crack-
ing your glass jaws, none of you will
like it.” He added: “Watch your
mouths because you don’t know
who you’re talking to sometimes. I
know, listen, all that public eyeball
shit, I ain’t into all that.”
The video shows Joshua stand-
ing in a black tracksuit while one
student in a white collared shirt
stands across from him with his
hands in his pockets. Another is on
a sofa while Joshua advises them
on how to speak to people.
A source told The Sun: “Lots of
profanity and abusive language
was chucked at him while the stu-
dents hid in an upstairs window.
They picked on the wrong man.
They should be more careful.”
A witness added: “I don’t think
they expected him to retaliate and
I don’t think they’ll be doing some-
thing like that again.”IN THE TIMES TOMORROW
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A detective who worked as a prostitute
when he was off duty has been found
guilty of gross misconduct after failing
to report his business interests to the
police force employing him.
Detective Constable Nicholas Taylor
and his partner Eleanor Turner adver-
tised online to meet men for sex at their
home in return for payment, a miscon-
duct hearing was told.
Taylor, who has 19 years’ experience
as a policeman, was employed by West
Midlands Police when his off-duty
activities were exposed in November
2020 by The Sun. The newspaper
reported that he was offering three-
somes at an hourly rate of £150 via an
adult website.
Taylor, who worked in the criminal
investigation department, told the
newspaper that the clients at his prop-
erty in Shropshire were aged from 21 to
- He resigned a day before the disci-
plinary hearing, which he did not
attend.
In a letter submitted to the hearing,
Taylor, who is believed to be in his early
40s, described his activities as “part of
his private life” and “an expression of
Detective Constable Nicholas Taylor
and Eleanor Turner sold sex online