U.S. actor Kevin Spacey was found not guilty on Wednesday by a jury at a London court of committing sex offences against four men between the early 2000s and mid-2010s.
The 64-year-old Oscar-winner was acquitted of nine charges, including sexual assault, causing a person to engage in sexual activity without consent and causing a person to engage in penetrative sexual activity.
During the four-week trial at Southwark Crown Court, jurors were told by prosecutors that the actor had aggressively groped three of the men when he was working as artistic director at London’s Old Vic Theatre.
The fourth said Spacey performed oral sex on him while he had passed out in the Hollywood star’s London apartment.
When he gave evidence, Spacey, who was tried under his full name Kevin Spacey Fowler, said the case against him was weak and that the incidents, if they had occurred, were consensual. He said he was promiscuous, a “big flirt” who had “casual, indiscriminate sexual encounters.”
Defence lawyer Patrick Gibbs said three of the men were liars and the alleged interactions had been “reimagined with a sinister spin.” He accused most of them of hopping on a “bandwagon” of complaints in the hope of striking it rich.
Prosecutor Christine Agnew told jurors that Spacey was a “sexual bully” who took what he wanted, when he wanted. She said he was shielded by a “trinity of protection”: he knew men were unlikely to complain; they wouldn’t be believed if they did complain; and if they did complain, no action would be taken because he was powerful.
The men came forward after an American actor accused Spacey of an incident of sexual misconduct as the Me Too movement heated up in 2017.
Several of the men said they had been haunted by the abuse and couldn’t bear to watch Spacey’s films.
One of the men broke down when speaking with police as he provided details in a videotaped interview about the oral sex incident that he said he’d never told anyone before. Another man said he was angry about the abuse that occurred sporadically over several years, and began to drink and work out more to cope with it.
Spacey choked up and became teary-eyed in the witness box as he described the emotional and financial turmoil that the U.S. accusations brought and the barrage of criticism that followed on social media.
“My world exploded,” Spacey testified. “There was a rush to judgment, and before the first question was asked or answered, I lost my job, I lost my reputation, I lost everything in a matter of days.”
WATCH | Spacey speaks to media after acquittal:
Actor Kevin Spacey said he was humbled and grateful to the jury after being acquitted of all nine sex-offence charges against him in Southwark Crown Court in London Wednesday.
Spacey was booted from House of Cards, and his scenes in All the Money in the World were scrubbed and he was replaced by Christopher Plummer. Aside from some small projects, he has barely worked as an actor in six years.
A New York jury last year swiftly cleared Spacey in a $40-million US lawsuit by Star Trek: Discovery