Kevin Spacey
Kevin Spacey, the Oscar-winning Hollywood actor, was scheduled to appear in a London court on Wednesday to stand trial for a dozen sexual offences allegedly committed more than a decade ago.
The 63-year-old ‘American Beauty’ and ‘House of Cards’ star faces a four-week trial at Southwark Crown Court in south London.
Since his first appearance in Britain court last year, he has been released on unconditional bail.
Spacey’s stellar career has been derailed by numerous allegations of sexual offences, despite the fact that he has never been convicted of a crime.
Last year, he appeared in London’s Old Bailey court to plead not guilty to five counts of sexual offences against three men. They supposedly occurred in London in 2005 and 2008 and in Gloucestershire, western England in 2013.
Prosecutors subsequently brought seven further charges against another man in November, bringing the total number of counts Spacey faces in the UK to 12.
Under English law, none of the alleged victims can be identified and reporting restrictions prevent more details from being revealed before the trial.
Spacey had a highly successful acting career, playing characters such as a middle-aged father longing after a teen in ‘American Beauty’, a serial killer in ‘Se7en’ and the villain in ‘Superman Returns’.
Between 2004 and 2015, he was the artistic director of London’s Old Vic Theatre.
In 2017 he was one of the first celebrities to be implicated in the global #MeToo movement, and he was accused of sexual assault by several young men.
He was dropped from the last season of the political drama ‘House of Cards’ as well as other projects.
A $40 million sexual misconduct lawsuit filed against Spacey was dismissed by a New York court last year.
The plaintiff, actor Anthony Rapp, said that the star raped him when he was 14 years old. He filed the civil suit after being advised that it was too late to file a criminal charge.
Spacey was cleared of indecent and sexual assault charges in Massachusetts in 2019.
Kevin Spacey has denied all allegations of sexual assault in court.
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