Boy George jailed for 15 months

Allie @ Gone Hollywood | Friday, January 16, 2009

Boy George was sentenced to 15 months jail today for handcuffing a male escort to a wall and beating him with a metal chain.

The 47-year-old former Culture Club singer, whose real name is George O’Dowd, imprisoned Audun Carlsen during a drug-fueled naked photoshoot at his London flat.

Sentencing the musician at Snaresbrook Crown Court in East London, Judge David Radford told him he was guilty of ‘gratuitous violence‘.

The judge condemned his ‘premeditated, callous, and degrading drug-fueled actions which traumatized‘ his victim.

The judge added: ‘He was denied his dignity.’

[Click thumbnails for a larger view]

Blank-faced O’Dowd glanced briefly at family members in the public gallery, who gasped as his jail term was read out.

There were emotional scenes outside court as family members and supporters of the pop star reacted to his sentence.

One male family member kicked one of the courtroom doors, shouting: ‘Fifteen months!’

Mr Carlsen, a 29-year-old Norwegian, fled in his underpants and alerted police after the attack in Shoreditch, East London, in April 2007.

Violence had flared after O’Dowd accused Mr Carlsen of stealing photos of himself from a laptop, taken when the pair met three months earlier.

O’Dowd has previous convictions for going equipped for theft as a juvenile in 1977, and a Class B drugs offense ten years later.

In 2006, in New York, he was given community service after pleading guilty to falsely reporting a burglary at his apartment in the city.

O’Dowd, who was convicted of false imprisonment last year, denied performing unprotected oral sex on Mr Carlsen as he sat naked in a chair during their first meeting.

Boy George jailed for 15 months

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