Artist News Legal

Boy George locked up for 15 months

By | Published on Monday 19 January 2009

So, all you people out there who moan about the fact that pop stars always get away with a light slap on the wrist will be pleased to hear that Boy George has been sent to the slammer for 15 months, after being found guilty of falsely imprisoning and beating a male escort at his London flat in April 2007.

On top of the prison sentence, he has been ordered to pay £5000 in legal costs to his victim.

As previously reported, Boy George, real name George O’Dowd, met escort Audun Carlsen on a social networking website and met up for a pornographic photoshoot at the star’s Shoreditch flat.

George later contacted Carlsen and accused him of stealing files from his laptop during the shoot. Despite this angry exchange, Carlsen later agreed to go back to the flat again, where George and another man handcuffed him to a bed and beat him.

Sentencing the singer at London’s fashionable Snaresbrook Crown Court, Judge Radford said: “Whilst I accept that Mr Carlsen’s physical injuries were not serious or permanent, in my view there can be no doubt that your premeditated callous and humiliating handcuffing and detention of Mr Carlsen shocked, degraded and traumatised him. He was deprived of his liberty and human dignity without warning or proper explanation to him of its purpose, length or purported justification”.

Following the sentencing, Boy George’s lawyer Steven Barker put the episode down to the star’s poor state of mind while battling with drug problems. He told the BBC: “George is on the road to recovery, I sincerely hope this sentence does not knock him back”.



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