LONDON — American actor Kevin Spacey is a “sexual bully” who “delights in making others really feel powerless and uncomfortable,” a London courtroom heard Friday as prosecutors started setting out their case in opposition to the Hollywood star.
Spacey, 63, is dealing with a string of sex-offense expenses involving 4 males. He “strenuously denies” all of the allegations in opposition to him. If convicted, he may face a jail sentence.
Prosecutor Christine Agnew advised the jury at London’s Southwark Crown Court docket that Spacey might have gotten a “sexual thrill” from preying on different males.
Spacey “doesn’t respect private boundaries or area” and “delights in making others really feel powerless and uncomfortable, a sexual bully,” Agnew mentioned, based on the Press Affiliation, a British information company.
Spacey denies the 12 expenses in opposition to him and has beforehand mentioned he hopes to make a profession comeback as soon as he has established his innocence and the London trial is over.
The Oscar-winning actor’s trial formally obtained underway earlier this week with jury choice. The jury will hear from the 4 males throughout the trial, which is predicted to final three to 4 weeks.
“Not one of the males wished to be touched by Kevin Spacey Fowler in a sexual means, however he doesn’t appear to have cared very a lot for his or her emotions,” Agnew mentioned, utilizing the actor’s full title. “He did what he wished to do for his personal private sexual gratification.”
The prosecutor warned the jury that they could really feel “star struck or overwhelmed that you’re a part of the jury to strive such a well-known individual however … you have to hold your self grounded and true to the oath that you’ve got taken.”
Spacey arrived on the Southwark Crown Court docket greater than two hours earlier than his case began. He traveled to the courtroom in a London black cab and wore a grey swimsuit and gold tie.
The costs in opposition to him embody sexual assault, indecent assault and inflicting an individual to have interaction in penetrative sexual exercise with out consent.
The alleged incidents are mentioned to have taken place in London and Gloucestershire between 2001 and 2013. Throughout a lot of that point, Spacey was the inventive director of London’s Outdated Vic theater, a prestigious playhouse.
Spacey was one in all America’s most celebrated actors earlier than allegations of sexual assault emerged on the peak of the #MeToo motion. He gained Oscars for the movies “The Regular Suspects” and “American Magnificence.” His flip as Frank Underwood within the Netflix political drama “Home of Playing cards” made him a family title. Shortly after he was first accused of sexual misconduct in 2017, he was dropped by that present and lower from Ridley Scott’s “All of the Cash within the World,” a movie that was accomplished on the time however then reshot with actor Christopher Plummer.
In a uncommon interview, Spacey advised Germany’s Zeit journal that the media had turned him right into a “monster” and that “lots of people are very afraid that in the event that they assist me, they are going to be canceled.”
There are “individuals proper now who’re prepared to rent me the second I’m cleared of those expenses in London,” he added. “The second that occurs, they’re prepared to maneuver ahead.”