Black Lace frontman survived jail by singing hit song and regualarly leading conga with inmates
Dene Michael Betteridge, who fraudulently claimed £25K in benefits, was besieged by requests from excited cons to blast out his hit songs
THE frontman of Black Lace told how he survived jail by repeatedly singing hit song Agadoo with murderers and drug dealers.
Dene Michael Betteridge, who fraudulently claimed £25K in benefits, was made to “Do the Conga” with 60 lags in the prison’s exercise yard.
The singer was besieged by requests from excited cons to blast out his hit songs during his 10-week stint in tough HMP Leeds.
After being allowed out early on a tag, he told The Sun: “It was very odd but when these terrifying criminals tell you to do something you do it, so we had a conga of convicts snaking around the jail.
“They all seemed to find it hilarious and everyone joined in. It lifted the gloom somewhat. All the murderers and drug dealers wanted to be my mate.”
Mr Betteridge admitted reciting his naff 80s hit Agadoo on a non-stop basis inside the Category B nick took its toll.
He said: “It was all the time, everyone wanted to sing Agadoo with me.
“It was surreal singing the party song about pushing pineapples and shaking the tree in such grim circumstances.
“But people were obsessed. At night when we were all in our cells, the entire wing was singing in chorus; ‘Agadoo doo doo’.
“I thought the prison officers would be angry but they found it hilarious.
"It was the nearest they’d come to seeing people having a good time.
“A lot of the hardened cons fancied themselves as entertainers and thought they were auditioning for a new singing career by serenading me with Agadoo.
“I signed a lot of autographs behind bars. It was a very odd experience.
“No-one was interested in my real name, I was just ‘Agadoo’.” The rest of his prison stay was less jolly, with the singer witnessing three cons attempting suicide, and lags out of their minds on the synthetic cannabis drug Spice.
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He said: “It was a horrible experience, appalling and disgusting. It was so overcrowded and there was no ventilation, it reeked.
“At times I was locked up for 23 hours a day. They are so short-staffed in there.
“It took three weeks for me to get clean sheets.
“I want to put this whole experience behind me and teach kids in schools the dangers of straying from the straight and narrow.”
Mr Betteridge, 59, has penned new songs behind bars and wants to record a new album to get his career back on track.
He is looking to star on TV in reality show Big Brother and get back to entertaining.
The singer had claimed he could only watch TV because of health problems - despite performing “vigorous physical activity” on stage.
At the time he and his wife were claiming disability benefits.
He even appeared in a Walkers Crisps advert with Gary Lineker - doing the conga just like events at HMP Leeds - although that was after he had stopped claiming benefits.
He was handed a six-month prison sentence on June 27 after pleading guilty to five counts of benefit fraud.
Mr Betteridge of Garforth, West Yorks, has so far re-paid £6,000.
He lied to Leeds City Council and the Department of Work and Pensions, claiming he was unable to walk, was constantly in pain and needed a carer.
He made false claims for housing benefit, disability living allowance and employment support between 2012 and 2014.
Throughout the two-year deception the entertainer was the frontman of the Yorkshire-based pop band.
In 2015 he appeared on the BBC TV talent show The Voice and has also appeared the ITV legal show Judge Rinder.
