The Who star was held by police in 2003 for using his credit card to access a child porn website, and he later accepted an official caution and was placed on Britain's sex offenders register for five years.

Townshend has always maintained his innocence, claiming he was merely researching the issue of online child porn, but he knows the scandal will always hang over him and is convinced he is long overdue a knighthood that will never come.

The guitarist tells The New Review magazine, "(It) was terrifying for a while... I think - it's hard for me to say this - but I think it probably, in the long term, was a good thing for me. I mean, the only thing that must be frustrating for those people who distribute gongs up in London, they probably want to give me a knighthood, but they can't. And I don't give a f**k."