Boy George is starting a 15-month jail term for a “humiliating” attack on a male escort. The 47-year-old former Culture Club singer, whose real name is George O’Dowd, handcuffed Audun Carlsen to a wall and beat him with a metal chain during a drug-fuelled naked photoshoot at his home.
When describing the attack at O’Dowd’s flat in East London, the judge added: “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.”
Relatives left in tears and one family member was seen kicking a wall and screaming after O’Dowd was jailed and ordered to pay £5,000 costs for the charge of false imprisonment.
O’Dowd’s legal team had earlier admitted he and Mr Carlsen had acted like “drug-crazed idiots” during the attack. But, speaking after the case, O’Dowd’s solicitor, Steven Barker, said: “George is on the road to recovery, I sincerely hope this sentence does not knock him back.”
Mr Carlsen, a 29-year-old Norwegian, had fled in his underpants and alerted police after the abduction in April 2007. O’Dowd did not give evidence in his defence.
It was said Mr Carlsen was dragged along the floor towards O’Dowd’s bed and a manacle was put on his right hand and attached to a hook drilled in the wall. 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. The pair met through the website ‘Gaydar’.
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